Yesterday, someone in my clan told me that our last SE main was rerolling to a DA. I checked my clan list (40 toons in main clan). We have 2 healers now. A 73 EE and a 5X bishop who plays about once a month. That's it. 40 toons (1 two-box in clan). 2 healers (only 1 active). Every other one has rerolled or quit. We also have no WC mains, no prophet mains, and 2 OL's (only 1 plays regularly, the other prefers his archer alt).
You don't need a healer in our clan for PvE, we have plenty of 2-boxed ones. And hell, with VR or herbs, we run without a healer usually. We never turned down a healer for a group, but what's the point in running with a group when all you do is stand there? They don't need any healing with VR, I guess if you're an SE, WC, or prophet you can at least buff them. In PvP, the healers we have are useless. Our EE dies in 1-2 hits. The SE's are mostly used as buffers, the heals are too slow. Both SE's and EE's are slower than pot spamming anyway, which is the primary strategy on Lionna. In raids, we have the EE, several SE 2-boxes, and another EE alt (my former main). Plenty to keep a tank alive. Usually we raid with a clan with a bishop or two though. Can't fault that, the bishops are definitely unparalleled at raids. Even some of those are 2-boxes now, used mostly at raids.
Whatever the status of healers is, its become clear in my own clan, noone wants to be redundant, noone wants to stand around useless most of the time, so they've rolled something more in demand.
In my clan there are 3 Shillien Elders and 1 Elven Elder. Of those only 1 Shillien Elder is active. One of them is away due to real life issues and we don't know when she will be able to come back. The other one only plays his alts these days and when he appears it is to get a party for his alts. The Elven Elder is the clan leader's alt the she uses to help people in the clan.
We had a Warcryer once but he left to a warring clan because he was offered powerleveling, items or whatever it was. We would get a overlord but due to a argument with the clan leader he decided to join another clan where his alts already were. We never had any Bishop or Prophet.
We have two guys who boxes and even I am starting on that path now. It is really a sad situation.
Oh look, Lisail still bitter he doesn't have SE friends?
We have plenty live support, I think in the vicinity of three or four SEs, two EEs, one bishop. No live prophet AFAIK unless you count me (I play both my EE/PP live if I get a chance, but people usually want heals over buffs).
If you don't need support, that's all good and dandy - others do. Not everyone plays the same, and that's a good thing.
I did play an EE, around 5x I grew the hell bored of the class, it was just not fun anymore, throw some heal, sit, stand throw some more heal, passed 20 min buff some buffs. sleep some times maybe then and then and well thats about it.
No fun at all, this is the ONLY game healers have 0 OFFENSIVE stuff. It really need to be fixed, give them something to have fun with as well.
Sure there is those who still like to play there healers/buffers but they are way to few. Making it so that healers is more needed will only cause more problems then it solve.
We have like 20 EE's, and around 5 bishops if not more, because at 75+ everyone knows the value of bishops in epic raids, regular raids, and yes even at sieges. The SE's are mostly boxed though.
We have like 20 EE's, and around 5 bishops if not more, because at 75+ everyone knows the value of bishops in epic raids, regular raids, and yes even at sieges. The SE's are mostly boxed though.
How much time do you spend raiding and sieging? How much time do you spend grouping? In the average group are you spending 95% or more of your time sitting? The exception is pole parties, but otherwise, do you enjoy sitting around?
I'm finding the higher I get, the more I trance and the less I heal.
There are plenty of mob skills worth interrupting for a small MP cost at my level (stuns, MP leeches, para, big nukes), and from all I've heard that only gets worse end-game in a melee group.
Of course perfect archer/nuker groups don't need that, but then you need a recharger, which means either an OOP SE that someone ahd to level up in party in order to be able to recharge, or an IP SE or EE.
It really depends on the group anyway, like if we don't have enough recharges to keep up, and we have 3+ SH's using BTM like it's going out of style, then yeah I sit, stand heal, sit. Over, and over, and over. But archer parties are the rage now so it doesn't happen as much.
Those type parties though are mind numbingly boring.
And Curse:Weakness makes wonders in melee groups when you have nothing to interrupt. Provided you have enough MP not to sit :p
The main problem causing the lack of the healers ingame seems to be that they must be very creative to find their place in the game... but there are not so many such creative people to begin with, and the game being mostly a mindless grind doesn't help either.
There could be two directions to solve the problem:
1. Secure some routine places for live healers ingame. It would allow not-so-bright people to play healers, but need to be weighted against nerfing the gameplay of other classes.
2. Provide more of creative content not related to pwning others. It would help other classes too.
Actually, the game design can move in both directions simultaneously.
I play(ed) a SE as main and I am(was) about to go bishop since I like to help out and stuff.
Att I do not play at all as I use Windows XP Pro x64 only.
If I ever get L2 to work again on either Windows XP Pro x64/Vista without to many issue's I would be back on my healer asap(melee is boring to me as is the nuker toons).
Thing is I do not forsee a future where this may happen.
(no updates etc about what's what you know).
I've said it before and I'll say it again...the imbalance of attack versus defense is the #1 thing wrong with L2.
And here's my prediction regarding 'Interlude'....ITS GOING TO GET WORSE.
I predict that once Interlude has been around for a bit, everything that is happening now is going to get 10x worse and the new 'refinement' system is going to do it. Simply put, from the L2Blah reports on Interlude live in Korea, everyone and their dog is 'refining' their weapons for skills....buff and heal skills that is! I expect L46+ raid boss farming to ramp up again once it hits, as people want the ores needed to refine stuff and RB's are supposed to have a higher drop rate on them. (Apparently the most popular stone for skill refining is only L46.)
And you know what? I'm hoping NC doesn't fix it either! After 5 Chronicles of crap, my OL could sure use those 'refinements' himself...seeing as solo pve is all that is left for him, since I refuse to be a buff [censored] at sieges and everyone else is leveling their archer/nuker with a boxed buffer...
buffers should refuse to buff someone that wont party. then when they just group for buffs and auto kick buffer, root should work even unflagged. call in the cavalry from there.
every healer i know is in light armor with duals/dagger. they rarely ASK for groups and usually in clan chat everyone begs them to group up.
i dont see a problem :confuzzled:
and how does that work out for them? As a bishop duals and a dagger and LA would do me no good even if I didn't have -7 STR, which I do to survive in PVP better. We have crap buffs too. If anything IF I could I would ramp up INT to nuke better since bishops have more undead skills than any other healer class, but I can't, so soloing with nukes continues to be painful expensive and slowwwww.
Well, the OP certainly finds very little use for my character. *shrugs* Good thing I have lots of people in my L2 world that find me a great asset.
However, I agree with PleChan... I would love to have an offensive skill to protect myself.
I have heard others on this forum say my job is kind of like Mother Theresa's... no self-interest but there to heal and save others. Pfft. If I get stuck with a mob, I'd like to have some method of killing it that won't take an hour.
In PvP we are open game. If someone is trying to kill me, I'd like some method of striking back. When you are focused on healing, the effort and time it takes to pull your attention from that task to find the person punching you full of holes and actually targeting them and trance/sleeping them.. well, I get overwhelmed with that one. Someone jokingly said we should have some sort of protective energy field that we can throw around us... but I can say reflect arrow would be nice :)
But I'm not a "doctor;" I haven't taken the Hippocratic oath of do no harm. I'd seriously like something dangerous at my disposal that I can use when I'm in a corner and can't get out. Even if Wind Strike could be upgraded, or we got anchor or something, perhaps undead skills somehow work in PvP ... something that gives us a chance to survive.
Honestly though.. I would love to have more played healers.. any of you healer types who wants to reroll to gustin.. pm me.. I can guarantee you a group every night from lvl 40 on, and most of the time you'll have a group even pre-40.
**edit** oops he said EE. trance/manaburn or heal/manaburn
Windshackle and sleep/root, would be my guess. I killed a group of pkers that way, repeatedly, outside of Gludin once. A dagger and two archers, they were atleast C grade and I was in B. The dagger was TimTom, don't remeber the archers.
Melee with duals, +4 Sls*sword of Limit and BW leather armor.
You have to sleep and root the archers, just root works on daggers. You stagger sleep and root so when one wears off you have a bit of time to recast the other one.
You then windshackle one and melee them, a whindshackled archer isn't much of a threat as you can easily interupt thier specials with sleep.
The archers were shooting each other to break sleep, so I really had to keep an eye on everyone.
I've been at this game for less than a year, but I'll offer my thoughts on this:
1) Buffing and/or healing is just very essential for many classes. So essential that many players will just get a second account and create a buffer/healer so they don't have to go without when they are having to solo. And many players do end up soloing a fair bit of the time, whether it's what they want to not.
2) Healer/buffer classes are probably boring classes to play for most people, as mains. So it ends up that there are few "live" buffer/healers in the game. In L2, they just don't have that much offense, and if they wear robes for mana, they don't have that much defense either. The only partial exception is Orc mystics, but they have their own situations that keep most people from wanting to play them as mains. (Since this is the only MMORPG game I've played, I have no clue if this is the case in other games.)
NC could probably turn the situation around somewhat by giving a little bit more action capabilities to healer/buffer classes. As long as they left the buffing and healing skills alone, most people would still want some kind of buffer/healer around.
Finally, maybe if NC made the high-level dungeons (aside from Cats) more appealing, this might also help stimulate more demand for live buffers and healers. This suggestion assumes that many of the high-level dungeons aren't desirable to play in for most players. Outside of the cats, I've only been to Devil's Isle, GC, and GoE. The first 2 on the list seem so challenging that most players just don't spend much time there. GoE is actually quite nice, but a bit too hard to get into, and the door timers for getting to lower levels takes too long. Maybe lvl 60+ players have a different experience, but that's my view. (The cats themselves seem much better game-designed than most other dungeons in L2, so I will give NC some credit for this.)
Well I 2-box with a Spellsinger and an SE but I mean if my clan really need my SE as opposed to my SpS then I would use my SE. I think its the herb drops that have made all the healing and buffing classes almost obsolete at least in pve. Sometimes I can go 10-15mins without needing a recharge because of all the mana herb drops :/
i actualy <3 vr cause i can join groups and dosent even have to do a **** [censored]...
in theory i could go afk or play another game while i leech xp
main reason i dont play is cause PvP is [censored]
To me all I would want are more mobs with skills that 'splode the whole party. That would give having a bishop/EE a point, and interrupting is fun (more fun than assisting for sure).
Making Serenade more effective (and OEable) would be a nice step too.
On a whole, adding more active damage mitigation skills to healers so they can actually bring down to their damage level in PvP (1200 range debuffs that stick for a notable time might be a nice start) and help the party survive in dangerous spots (of which there should be more rewarding ones at all levels so that healers can actually level) would be very nice.
More plain out debiliating skills in the direction of root and the interrupt for PP (but why on earth as a 79+ skill?) for both PP and SE migth be nice as well.
Bishops are the worst class ingame atm.. for xping atleast
Well, as i have said many times, I love my class. I have lots of fun. It is not boring for me at all... and if I get into a party that I have to do very little, well, I beg out for something more challenging. I have xp'd from level 1-76 without any problem, except for a terrible period from 75-76 where I was in a clan that believed in cliques and soloing. Thank God I'm out of that clan.
and yes.. healing can get boring, special in PvP where heals isnt needed, cause when cp is gone ur dead anyway
I made comment about this about 2-3 weeks ago in "game suggestions". And just about every one who posted there shot my idea down.
I don't get it, why is it when People complain that you want a skill that can do dmg, and when someone makes a suggestion for that you shot them between the eyes.
Seriously if your going to [Censored] then you need to come up with a idea (like I did). Add dmg to Wind strike, and root, Also to Arrest (BD, SwS, Tanks).
The is no reason why those skills, esisting skills; not even a new skill just one that is already there isn't capable of dealing dmg. That is so much simpler then NCsoft needing to make a whole new skill add more effects, and more Code; Then by just adding some simple code for dmg with a skill thats already in game.
Gear:
+25 BW Light Set
+20 Tat Set
+0 Basalt W/ Health
+5 NM Sheild
Generally just beat them down, mana drain them a few times at the start too. Make sure your sheild faces them at ALL times. Don't let your hp get low. Since I heal for around 1100 I heal at 1k from max.
The problem isn't two-boxing. Two-boxing is another symptom of the same problem, the fact that there are simply very few people who enjoy healer classes enough to play them as a main all the way up. For most people, myself included, playing a healer isn't all that much fun, and playing a buffer is worse. I can't understand how ANYONE can play a prophet live, although I do know people who enjoy it, so more power to them, wish there were more like that.
I have a boxed Warcryer, I've played him alone sometimes (in parties of course, but not 2 boxed) and man was it a borefest. I'm not the kind of person who needs to be an uber DD (my subclass is a bladedancer which I find one of the most enjoyable classes I've ever played) but having a character whose only meaningful contribution to the group is pushing a few buttons every 20 minutes just isn't fun. The BD is far more fun -- I need to choose a selection of buffs to give (granted in most groups, there's only one good choice), I can hex monsters (and I play mainly in melee parties), and I can deal melee damage that's at least adequate (I don't win any DPS awards but I make a noticable boost in killspeed).
To fix the problem, they need to go at the root -- make the healer/buffer classes more fun to play. Same with dwarves, incidentally -- I don't think the root problem there is just being PvP gimped, although they could use some love there. The real problem is the fact a level 75 BH, apart from spoil, really has only one useful skill in PvE, and they probably won't even have the MP to use it often.
But how did you kill them. The skills you list are only avoidance skills....
Mana burn is like cancel in arena. It ****** the crap out of people enough to make them leave. Daggers like to see how much damage they can do in arena and with no mana they can't use specials.
I've found that there's plenty a warcryer can do in a party. You do have to buff every 20 minutes, so if that's not your thing, nothing can be done about that. But aside from buffing, you DD (not a major DD, but you slap the mobs around some :p), crowd control and a well placed stun can be handy.
I made comment about this about 2-3 weeks ago in "game suggestions". And just about every one who posted there shot my idea down.
Yeah, that's why I made my comment about Mother Theresa. For some ungodly reason, in a PVP game, those DDs think a healer "should" be pure. goes along with the myth that a bride "should" be a virgin, I suppose. lol.
I've found that there's plenty a warcryer can do in a party. You do have to buff every 20 minutes, so if that's not your thing, nothing can be done about that. But aside from buffing, you DD (not a major DD, but you slap the mobs around some :p), crowd control and a well placed stun can be handy.
Warcryers have the best soloing abilities from all healer-buffer classes. Heavy armor masteries, melle buffs and soul cry toggle do the trick. And in parties, they are the only bufers that don't sit down, since their damage output is far from neglectable (specially when I use a dagger, I steal aggro many times from the tank).
It's really good to play with a great bishop. The best I ever met was ThePope on Hindemith. No way a box could have ever replaced him.
I'll never see a box heal the tank, aggroing a gargoyle, running out so the AOE flame of the gargoyle doesn't hit the rest of the party, sleeping adds, all in a couple of seconds.
And sadly these days, it's hard to find a good dedicated healer, let alone recruiting one in the clan.
And sadly these days, it's hard to find a good dedicated healer, let alone recruiting one in the clan.
Because they aren't fun to play. That's the point of this. They can't do damage, they aren't needed to xp (due to either OoP buffers or herbs), and they aren't effective in PvP. There isn't enough benefit to having a healer. You get penalized for fighting dark red mobs, i.e. mobs that would require you to need a healer. You get much better xp by hunting without a healer fighting greens and whites. There is no circumstance where a tank and healer will increase the xp you get. There are no dangerous mobs that give you an xp advantage. Offense is supreme.
You no longer really need a healer. My SwS can hunt endlessly with herbs and that toon isn't even considered a great soloer. My WC hunts whites and stays at full health all the time with herbs.
And in PvP you and any DD with you will get dropped instantly with archer crits. And what can you do? Trance? Fails. Wind shackle? lol. Heal? They die too fast. Offense is supreme.
But that is just not true, Valdis. A Bishop is a lot of fun to play. Lots of things to do. I have rarely been bored. I have been frustrated because I can kill hardly anything ... [I can kill, like, Doom Knights, but not on a continuing basis due to the MP usage.]
I think from a DD point of view it might be perceived as boring, but that doesn't mean it is, just because they don't get in the hits. From my viewpoint a DD is kinda boring. For instance, I play my SR just for relaxation, cuz not much to do but just hit the attack button... few decisions to make ... just noke an arrow... haha. ... A Tank's job is hard cuz you constantly have to be on top of everything and requires concentration. This is the same for the bishop... other healers too, i suppose.
Certainly there are classes that don't need other classes.. and I know people that all they do is solo. They prefer it... so the herbs etc are great. But soloing is a lonely life. Many people say how they really hate it, as they play this game to be with other people; they only do it because there are no groups going on. Personally, I like to group up, and my class requires it as well, so no surprise that I chose it.
I run into a lot of players that have never even seen a bishop, it's pretty sad. Sometimes I run around to noobie towns just for fun.
I got invited to a trio (on my bishop), by someone I played a bit with when I was cleric. He naturally assumed that I had gone prophet, and kinda felt jipped by being given focus 1 and might 2 and all that :p
But they let me stay anyway :D
The areas that require a full, attentive and cooperative group should be the best of the best level spots, but they are not. See... well, swamp of screams.
I played a bishop up to 49 a long long time ago. I enjoyed the class and playstyle greatly. In the clan I was in there was a reoccuring joke about my Uber Bish Buffs (UBB). And they'd laugh and I would too.
But you know, If I was the only live healer available, how they would love love love my UBB's. As low as they are, it can make a big difference with small groups. Nobody complains as long as it's not a pickup group with some jerk who can't xp without a PP.
It's really good to play with a great bishop. The best I ever met was ThePope on Hindemith. No way a box could have ever replaced him.
I'll never see a box heal the tank, aggroing a gargoyle, running out so the AOE flame of the gargoyle doesn't hit the rest of the party, sleeping adds, all in a couple of seconds.
And sadly these days, it's hard to find a good dedicated healer, let alone recruiting one in the clan.
Oh, live healers are wonderful things. Unless I'm totally off-base on who TheObserver is, she's an exceptionally good one on Lionna. And I think it's great some people really enjoy the classes, I just wish more people felt that way.
I run into a lot of players that have never even seen a bishop, it's pretty sad. Sometimes I run around to noobie towns just for fun.
Seriously?! That's just...crazy.
Maybe my clan is lucky, since we have plenty of live support (of all classes, except OL), and all of us get groups if we want (usually).
There certainly are places where live healers are required in this game (at least for most groups), places like IT/MoS/FoG, I'd never go without a healer. Sure people can say "but we get better exp soloing somewhere else", but then good luck getting S grade recipes from the quests in those places.
For me personally, healers are as fun as DDs to play (although I only have my 46 PW sub as my highest DD), but in a different way. People are saying "All you do is sit, stand, heal, heal, recharge" or whatever. But what does a DD do? Right click, right click, use skill etc. Doesn't seem that different to me. Except that the healer usually has to pay more attention to what's going on than the DDs, and depending on the group are more active with crowd control on top of everything else.
Also, if things go bad it's nice to be able to actually save people. What can a DD do to save a party member that's just about to die? Not much except try and kill the mob(s) faster.
PvP wise, I've only really PvP'd on my EE, but I agree with Caliaa. It's quite possible for EEs to kill other chars, unless they're so overbuffed (and you're not) that they can kill you faster than you can heal. Sure we don't one hit anyone, but with Light Armour, Shield, Major Heal and Clarity it takes a while for us to die. It's always fun to watch a DD die and then complain "But you healed! You're not allowed to heal" (happened a few times).
That's only really for arena PvP though, but I'm a "carebear" and don't PvP in the open field much, and if I do it's as a healer,not trying to kill someone.
Finally I'd agree with Maline, it'd be really nice to have plenty of spots for all levels (rather than just the highest), where a group with decent support (tank/buffer/healer) can get greater rewards than someone soloing with boxed buffers, by quite a wide margin. Also gearing them to mixed groups would be nice, no melee specific, nuker specific, archer specific areas etc. It'd be nice if they actually took concentration to level in for all members of the party as well :).
Yes, to have it so there places that are soloable is good, because there are times when we must all solo, and for some, lie me, that is the majority of the time. But to make it so that some places only work well with all classes used, and make it so that they get some reward out of the effort, would also be good. But, they would have to do that at all levels of the game, not just upper levels. Right now, I know of maybe 2 places in the game that might really require a well-balanced mix of classes. One is the fire side of Forgotten Temple, which I can't say offers any particular rewards. The other is maybe AL, and I don't know if there is that much reward to go there. Furthermore, on my server, I've heard it's always controlled by one major clan or the other, and they don't allow others in.
Yes, to have it so there places that are soloable is good, because there are times when we must all solo, and for some, lie me, that is the majority of the time. But to make it so that some places only work well with all classes used, and make it so that they get some reward out of the effort, would also be good. But, they would have to do that at all levels of the game, not just upper levels. Right now, I know of maybe 2 places in the game that might really require a well-balanced mix of classes. One is the fire side of Forgotten Temple, which I can't say offers any particular rewards. The other is maybe AL, and I don't know if there is that much reward to go there. Furthermore, on my server, I've heard it's always controlled by one major clan or the other, and they don't allow others in.
Many of the highest-level areas, like Monastery of Silence, Pagan's Temple, Imperial Tomb, etc. work well for a well-balanced party and live healers. But yeah, before that point, there's not a huge number of those places.
I've played an EE since OB, and I love it... now. I didn't always, because I hated being 100% dependent on other people for my xp. That didn't work out so well for me. So I made an SpS on a second account and I've been happy ever since. :) But really, in groups I prefer healing by far. It's much more interesting than the insanely boring right click, F1, F1, F1 of a nuker, or worse, the right click, /attack ....(wait till the mob dies).... right click, /attack ..... of an archer.
Most clans I've been in have averaged 2-3 live, active healers. Once we had 6 active healers - and that sucked. With that many healers, there was more supply than demand. Someone was always getting left out. After 2 months of that, 2 healers left the game, 3 healers left the clan and I rerolled to a SwS, but after all the other healers left, the clan begged me to come back on my EE so I did.
I'll admit, there have been many times in the past when I became very frustrated with my class in pvp. Mostly pre-C5, because we got some good pvp skills in C5, but even now, I hate it when I get crit by an archer for 4k+ and go down in 1-2 hits. I used to get so frustrated because our opponents would always target me first (as they should) and I'd be dead the entire pvp battle. I felt so useless to my clan. I last quite a bit longer now with cp, cp pots, quick heal pots, etc. so I'm usually able to do quite a bit of healing by staying in the back before someone breaks through to kill me. PvP is much more enjoyable to me now that I last long enough to contribute.
As a healer/buffer (SE since C1), I've learned to accept my role. I am not a major PVPer (though I can and have held my own in one-on-one combat), I am not a decent DD (though I know a certain TK that would disagree, back from C4 and before the bow nerfs for SEs), nor am I the best healer any more.
But, still, I enjoy playing my class. It's a thankless job, but I do it because I am a support class player. I don't want to be a damage dealer. I don't want to be a tank (though... I find myself tanking quite a lot. Ask MarcusAlberton about that, if you're curious), and I don't want to be anything other than what I am.
Clerics in NWN got heal spells, plus servitors, plus a nasty little spell called harm. That would be nice.
bit OOT but cleric in NWN properly built is meelee char par excelence, sort of self buffing DD. under some circumstances it is the best self standing char. note that nwn has invisibility system, which makes the game a lot different.
I don't mind having a CP heal to be useful in PvP against classes that can wipe the HP of the guy I assist before I can heal or almost, but as I don't truly PvP yet, that's not my current problem.
I'm bishop, I love my class and I don't want more DD skill. I don't want to be able to solo. I play bishop for party. The problem I have : in my clan, the more active guys that I could group with have a SE and not the same hours for logging. In my ally there are a few bishops already, I don't know how many EE/SE/PP. As a result I have to spam shout, several allies, people in friendlist that I met while shouting in catas, and wait, wait, wait.
The problem I meet from 40, is that first I can't compete with a SE : VR, recharge, and sufficient heal for most of groups (not all groups are 9 guys at TOI 10 or rift). Once a SE is in the group, if I want not to spoil the xp, we must find other DDs. It takes even more time to set up the party. Fortunately I'm accepted in groups where a SE would fit better (with VR you often don't need to heal), because there are nice people. But the most annoying for bishop is to be useless in a group.
Secondly skills against undead take far too much MP. I don't speak about the nuke, but about Hold Undead (powerful but limited to undead, it shouldn't be so MP expensive). I'm happy to have Trance at least, it's very useful in catas.
Thirdly, you need several DD in a group and often only one healer. It gives the proportion of healers needed, and as healers not in party won't level, it automatically reduces the number of healers to the minimum required at high level.
Finally bishops are some kind of myth that people talk about at the tavern.
"Hast thou seen his holy prowess in the courtyard of the castle, wouldst thou pray Einhasad every minute thou livest!"
But as nobody knows the power of frenzy, nobody knows how works Recharge! No I won't do a 600HP heal on a tank if I can wait a bit and make a 1500HP one without bsps nor spirit ore. Yep, a tank with 5000HP is healed by 1500HP from a 30% Recharge that I have at my level. So a message for EE and SE : let the bishop do his job! :)
Oh and nothing hurts me more than when I make a criticism about bishops not getting a party and a high-level bishop of my ally replies "if you don't like your class, reroll". I 923ing love bishop class! I just want to play! :(
PS: I don't like buffers who sit and go afk after buffing. If you have enough MP, recharge that poor dagger!
About the good places requiring an active party, Orc Barrack is one. It's funny to camp a camp with a party of ppl lvl 25, it requires some skills of crowd control.
I can't remember if OB has herbs, but most people 1-35 at the very least just go to herb areas and what do they need healers for? I've levelled several academy characters so between noobie buffs and herbs, the need for clerics/oracles is almost non existent.
though I do look back to the old days of EF where you HAD TO HAVE a healing char of some sort ;) Heck even AC/OB...
My clan pulls AOE trains in there, and I don't think I've seen a single herb drop on the inside. I think some of the mobs on the outside ring do, but I could be wrong.
Yeah OB has herbs, but I dont really care about that since I have a two box SE behind my nuker.
There is a number of reasons why Id like to have a cleric around:
1- Cause I know how hard it is to level a cleric/SO/EO when your a new and cant afford all that fancy equip to solo
2- Acumen is nice and zerc are very nice to have
3- Pick up the drops! Im ashamed to say Ive fallen into the hole "im too lazy to pick up my drops"mentality!. But I cant bare to see all that adea on the ground.
Anyways, I do that with my prophet or bishop at higher levels. I tag along with a nuker (who of course has an SE OOP). I make sure they have acu and zerc, heal them so they dont die when they agro more than they should have, and pick up drops.
Cause I was there last night and it did :S
I might be going insane , oh well.
Or as someone mentioned, only the mobs on the outer ring drop herbs, and thats where I was.