173 replies to this topic

[asuboy]

Dont complaint about cleric, just play clerics if you think clerics are fun in cd, dont you know, people cursing at us ( clerics ) if we dont have 1000 +++. Charm, and if the team lost . They always blame the cleric, do you know how much money we spend on clerics to get a max charm ???? Stop complaining , just play the game as it is !!!!!

[DigitalKitten]

@asuboy to start with, it's called feedback. You should learn how to deal with critique, it can only make things better.


However, about the whole summon thing, I personally think there should be completely separate PvM and PvP skill trees. It makes it much easier to ruin balancing on one side if you focus PvP more.

I would like to say that champs aren't that squishy as they're being described. Seen them scoring clear 360 points without standing in the crystal. You don't need to necessary have crazy many clerics healing you, let's say the team is even...just make sure to pot at the right time?

I'd say raiders (yeah they have dodge but it's still weak), and mages, artis are the squishy ones, but an arti and a Mage usually get way better points than a raider. I have so much screenies of good raiders being all chunked up on the bottom of the scoreboard together.

[DoubleRose]

I'd say raiders (yeah they have dodge but it's still weak), and mages, artis are the squishy ones, but an arti and a Mage usually get way better points than a raider. I have so much screenies of good raiders being all chunked up on the bottom of the scoreboard together.

 

Cloaking isn't what it used to be and Dual Raiders are sort of outclassed by Champions.  Since dual raiders are melee, I don't understand why their armor penetration is weaker than other classes.

Mages are squishy and completely spell reliant.  I prefer battle clerics which are more defensive and can attack while muted, but have much worse aoe to make up for it.

Arti gets good armor pen.  They can damage any class pretty well.

As for scouts, I have too little information to tell you.  I assume they aren't bad because summons are so strong in pvp situations. 

[jerremy]

As for scouts, I have too little information to tell you.  I assume they aren't bad because summons are so strong in pvp situations. 

Bow scouts are pretty.. low on the rankings right now. Xbows do decently.

Summons aren't actually that strong in pvp situations, with only a few exceptions:

-Judgment summon: Ridiculous attack speed and critical rating (so much critical that even axe champs can't land a crit on them), with decently high raw attack power. Hits fast, hard, and crits often. Also tanky and difficult to take down, since it gets healed by party heals when in range.

-Phantom swords: Despite having not very high stats, the fact that you can summon 3-4 swords at the same time can hit really hard. Also easy to resummon. These however go down rather quickly since their hp and defense is low.

-Mercenary hunters: Not very high damage and defense, but thanks to being range they usually don't get damaged and can be a real annoyance from afar.

 

The hawk, beast, dread and terror knight summons however, are weak. Dread has less damage than judgment cause it loses out on crit and aspd, and dies too easy. Terror can tank, but has barely any damage. Hawk is plain weak in both offense and defense, dies almost instantly. Beast is tanky enough to survive aoe hell, and has a decent amount of dmg, but the attack speed is so low it is rather useless.

Edited by jerremy, 02 January 2014 - 10:29 AM.

[Leonis]

I wanted to discuss some changes to CD in one post if we can.  There are a lot of complaints, proposed changes, etc but they are spread all over the forums.  Please try to refrain from trolling, fighting, trash talking, making fun of people, etc.  If you have a complaint, post a suggestion for change.  The more ideas with good reasoning we can come up with the more helpful it is to the Devs.
 
1. Mana Break skill - with everyone being able to get this skill it is mostly annoying as hell.  At least after you die in Cd and are respawned, you should be able to regen your mp as well as your HP.  I always thought that you did, but I have not yet any time I died.  So I die because of no MP, and on respawn still no regen.  I don't know how I feel about the skill, and I think it is being abused from the original concept, but if keeping it let us regen MP on death.

There should have been a full restore on death last I was aware. I'll have to ask Genesis regarding this.
 

2. I think clerics should not get points for healing the crystal.  I think we should be able to heal it, but not get points for it.  If we are still getting such high points, then healing points overall should be adjusted.  But first try no points for healing the crystal.

That's something I agree with, however currently it will require some development time to differentiate tracking the amount of healing done to non-players, and players.
 

3. I think once clerics get no points for healing the crystal we might see less clerics playing.  But if not then the number of FS clerics allowed in should be adjusted again. 5 or 6 clerics per side make for boring wars where the crystal never goes down and very few people die.  And if you are 1 cleric vs 4 clerics it is a very miserable game.  The wars are not wars anymore.

When you have so many supportive classes, I would recommend adjusting strategies to focus on their ability to support because that is the strength of your opponent's team. To play 'normally' otherwise, would follow under one of my favorite quotes: Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. ~ Albert Einstein
 

4. AOE stuns, sleeps, mutes - In my opinion there are way too many of these between the classes.  I can see a class having one or two to help get away from an enemy, etc.  But some classes have too many of them and they are strong.

Would you care to list all of these skills, so I have a better perception of what you see?
 

5. To help get Akram Arena going with a lot of people have a scheduled time for it to go, maybe 4 times a day.  And increase the numbers to 15/side with no maximum limit.  Make it so people can't sign up for any other pvp games except for AA for maybe 15 min before it goes.  AA is fun with a lot of people and I think if we get them going more people will like them.

I'm not opposed to the idea of removing the limit of opponents, but a minimum is still needed to be set so it knows when to at least trigger. As for the timed event, this is something that was long ago hated, which is the entire reason why the Game Arena was created in the first place. Because of the 'time intervals' it created an issue of time zone restrictions, for many players around the world. There wasn't a good enough cycle where everyone was able to join in, because it would either be too early or late, for some who have limited time to play in the first place. So, the idea of the Game Arena was, to let you all play, once the needs of a match were met and it would launch a match immediately.

I'm only replying to your post for now, because it was the kick start of the thread. So now I'll be going through the rest of the posts and responses.

[DigitalKitten]

I'm not opposed to the idea of removing the limit of opponents, but a minimum is still needed to be set so it knows when to at least trigger. As for the timed event, this is something that was long ago hated, which is the entire reason why the Game Arena was created in the first place. Because of the 'time intervals' it created an issue of time zone restrictions, for many players around the world. There wasn't a good enough cycle where everyone was able to join in, because it would either be too early or late, for some who have limited time to play in the first place. So, the idea of the Game Arena was, to let you all play, once the needs of a match were met and it would launch a match immediately.

I'm only replying to your post for now, because it was the kick start of the thread. So now I'll be going through the rest of the posts and responses.

 

Can't you just keep a active schedule so it gets started but still keep the game que-able? That way people will manage to play it even if they miss the que =) There's some way needed to trigger people to que...

[Bendersmom]

There should have been a full restore on death last I was aware. I'll have to ask Genesis regarding this.

Tested this at all 3 crystal respawns.  If you have no MP when you die then you do not get any when you respawn.  You regen HP but not MP if it is all drained.
 
When you have so many supportive classes, I would recommend adjusting strategies to focus on their ability to support because that is the strength of your opponent's team. To play 'normally' otherwise, would follow under one of my favorite quotes: Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. ~ Albert Einstein

Your quote would indicate that we should not be doing CD at all, since it is usually the same problems.  1 cleric vs 5, 2 clerics vs 5, 0 clerics vs 3, etc.  You can not play your cleric to it's potential if you are being targeted by 5 clerics with sleeps, mutes and mana break when you are the only cleric, no matter how much your team tries to protect you (which they don't but that is another issue) the sleeps are non stop since the cooldown is so short, the mana break is constant since the cooldown is so short and even trying to run back doesn't help much since the mutes and mana break are ranged.
 
Would you care to list all of these skills, so I have a better perception of what you see?

Cleric mute, cleric aoe sleep, cleric sleep, champs have a stun I believe or more than one, bourgs stun, mages stun, etc.  I do not really know all of them but there are a lot it seems.  The worst are the cleric aoe sleep since there are usually 4 or more clerics just spamming it at once.  It needs a much longer cooldown.
 
I'm not opposed to the idea of removing the limit of opponents, but a minimum is still needed to be set so it knows when to at least trigger. As for the timed event, this is something that was long ago hated, which is the entire reason why the Game Arena was created in the first place. Because of the 'time intervals' it created an issue of time zone restrictions, for many players around the world. There wasn't a good enough cycle where everyone was able to join in, because it would either be too early or late, for some who have limited time to play in the first place. So, the idea of the Game Arena was, to let you all play, once the needs of a match were met and it would launch a match immediately.
UW was a lot different then what we are suggesting.  Yes, they did not always go when it was convenient to your own time schedule and sometimes I would only get one in per night.  But one AA a day would be fine since people want to do the quests on the days they are available.  And in the mean time, you would have the other GA games to do while waiting.  When UW were around there was nothing else to do war wise.  And if you had the AA go like every 6 hours then everyone would at least get one in probably per day.  And I think once people start doing them they will like them more.  Right now a lot don't even know what it is since it rarely goes.
 

BTW Welcome back Leo and happy New year!

 

Edited by Bendersmom, 02 January 2014 - 01:58 PM.

[Logi]

 
Would you care to list all of these skills, so I have a better perception of what you see?
 

 

The cleric sleep aoe is the biggest problem, the cooldown is waaay to short. This should be a last resort to get away from trouble, not a skill to spam to control the battlefield. Almost all classes got their selfbuffs nerfed in time but increased in strength, this as a quick means of getting away ( a 20 sec strong MSPD buff) or as a batlte ender ( a 20 sec strong AP buff). The cleric sleep aoe is a spammable skill that effects everyone around the cleric, which is alot of people because of the party heals, so clerics want to be close to their allies. Making it 80% succesrate from a 100% did help a little, but it still hits far more often then it fails. Simply increase the cooldown significantly and let us test that out. This way it becomes a safety feature for clerics who are trapped behind enemy lines or attacked by alot of people, so they can run off to safety.

 

Right now all it does it slow down the experience on the battlefield as the attackers and defenders take turns being slept for 5 sec. AOEs release you as it is a wake up call, but the constant stopping of play by being slept for even 1 sec is very annoying. The 1 target sleep isnt too bad, might need some looking into, but if you use it you can't attaclk the person because he will wake up.

[DestinyDeoxys]

Most people here say the cool down is too short, but I disagree. I think It is optimal.

It is the number of clerics allowed on each team making it look like cool down is short. FYI, the cool down of sleep cloud is 25 sec and the cool down of PvP sleep cloud is 20 sec, which I think they are optimal.

There are too many people playing clerics right now, which makes war consist of 50% cleric 50% fighters mostly because of how easy you can get max honor points from wars.

Making the cool down on sleep cloud will not solve the stalemate problem of crystal defender because the party heal problem still exist, and I will say it one more time, we must need to put a limit on number of clerics allowed on each team where the number of clerics needed to be balanced.


1 cleric vs 1 cleric is not fun because people only has 1 target to mute for
2 clerics vs 2 clerics is the most optimal
3 clerics vs 3 clerics is when stalemate occur because this combination can allow the team to receive party heal all the time if done correctly


The system needs to tag the cleric with full set of buffs to be eligibly counted as one. And make sure the queue forbid any queue that consist of a group that contains 3 or more clerics. Again, in my opinion, I think only 2 clerics vs 2 clerics is the highest you should allow, because 3 vs 3 is really easy, I know this will slow down the queuing but that's the trade off between quality war and quantity war.

And I think the queue should make the number of clerics even, either 1 vs 1 or 2 vs 2, it's a big disadvantage otherwise. The point system should also be limited such that healing crystal does not count towards your healing inflicted, then everything should be fine.


One final thing that I need to mention is, the party purify change was a bad move, you changed it from 5m radius to 20m radius, it was already very useful at 5m, now you change it to 20m which will make it overpowered and this skill becomes a necessity not a unique skill anymore.

[Logi]

1 I think the cooldown could be longer, it not something that should be used often at all, but I see merit in what you say.

2 yes plssssss make a limit to the amount of clerics able to go into war

3 party purify could go to like 10m, and its still usefull, 5m seems a little small if you ask me, even close together but not on top of each other you would miss some people, but this is countered by its small cooldown so np eventually

[Leonis]

Mana Brake, the suggestions to increase power and cooldown is good. I'll consider that, because it was originally being balanced as a rate of effect vs rate of use. So as long as this can be kept on the same level, increasing effect and cooldown is good. It allows for the same impact of drain, while removing the constant barrage of its effect and gives a chance for the targeted to counteract it to some degree.

Draconis Peaks being so few, is intentionally that way to help the smaller parties and groups to queue off faster. The reward cap is smaller, which is your trade off. The unorganized-ness I would give a bit of credit to the fact that it hasn't been as popular and over the course of time has been run much less than Crystal Defenders. So it is a bit of a learning experience for some.

The competing with one another was also a point of the recent changes, because it was all the same group sizes. Now that they are different, there is less competition, but they will always compete with one another. If we were to put them on a rotation to force players to play day to day, I think you would find that there would be further upset about having been removed the ability to choose. One of the goals I have is that we keep options open to players so they can enjoy the aspect they like the most. But have a give and take behind those choices. As we've announced, one of those will be the unique rewards we will be working towards providing between each type of match.

status
aoe sleeps take too many players out of the action for too long
losing control of your character for 5 seconds is not fun, and there is no counter play to being put to sleep.  you are helpless unless the enemy choose to attack you.  an enemy can click on you, hit their sleep spell, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

Simple counter: work with your team and plan with your team not to group so much.
 

clerics
I dont like setting up a system that screws over battle clerics.  if a team is forced to have a limited number of clerics, it puts your team at a big disadvantage to trade one of the healer/buffer slots for a battle cleric because a scout or bourg could fill the same role as a battle cleric. if a bunch of battle clerics happened to que at the same time, your team might have no real clerics. this is an mmo so support clerics are the best class and their only tradeoff is that they need allies. if you had to pick only one class to make up your team, who in the right mind wouldn't pick clerics?  who else can buff allies, heal the crystal, and has massive utility? there are different offensive classes with unique skills that are needed to take out enemies so you can go for the objective, but having clerics is the dominant strategy.
 
given these things, if a cleric limitation is imposed, battle clerics need some sort of special label in the que if they have different skills from normal clerics- ex. having no buff skills removes the cleric label.

The ability to create hybrid builds as well, will confound any kind of 'recognition' system when knowing how to decide if it is a battle build, support or otherwise. The idea of restricting a class is also not something I want to see happen, in part for that simple fact, but also because I would like to not see any kind of exclusions that couldn't be applied to all for a unified and justified reason. So, for future suggestions, please keep in mind that I will not be supportive of the idea of limiting a class' access to playing. Instead, let's figure out what we can do to help balance things out in those events. In short, help me understand how you all play and what kind of power balance shift you experience when there are multiple Clerics on one side vs another.
 

timers
a goal in business is to make their product a daily routine.  your local coffee shop wants you to stop by on your way to work everyday.  having CD at set times might be a good equivalent. right now there is an energy system which is a different time of game design because it is a restriction in game play. i find energy inferior to timers because when I log in with full energy I don't know if I will actually get to play a game, it depends on how many people are qued up.  if a CD is at 6 pm every night I know exactly what I am getting.

yes, but at 6pm your time, is 4am another time zone and different for many of our players. Finding a time zone that is convenient for players is not easy. Even a 2 hour time table between matches is not ideal. We've tried making these time tables work years ago and for an extended period of time, to which there was no enjoyed solution. Too frequently, not enough people sign up and the match wouldn't launch. In this case, if it did launch even without the needed people, it becomes boring and less epic a match. The Game Arena's intention was to launch matches when there were enough queued players to let it be filled and fun. Returning to a timed cycle will bring back old issues already gone through unsuccessfully.

I also think that the way GA energy works should be reworked, DP is shorter than CD and it still costs 4k GA energy. Also, The 7k for a dungeon is a bit too much too. Speaking of which, was the GA energy regeneration rate changed? It's almost twice slower for me :/

Actually, that is one of the drawbacks that will remain as an intended factor to choosing which you wish to participate in. You will trigger faster with Draconis Peaks, ensuring you will be able to have your match, however the point cap is smaller. Yes, it may compete and sway players to pick Crystal Defenders in the end, but how long would you be willing to wait? It is a time vs reward matter, but the cost is only a limit of time. It takes the same amount of time to regenerate the energy to do either type of match. And no, the regeneration rate was not changed.

And at last, back to draconis peaks. I feel like there's no challange to grab an egg when people don't defend the base if the number is 5v5, as a raider you can sneak grab a egg and run away, could you guys make the dragon do a tiny bit more damage while you pick the egg up?
And also, when you stealth in draconis peaks it's completely useless, people see the circle around your feet and I always know where to decloak, I would love to be able to cloak / stealth normally in draconis peaks as well.

You do get points when you get an egg and return it currently, but the point impact is minimal. This is going to change very soon. Not to take away from the rest you stated, I feel I've given some responses already that cover most of it, so just responding to this portion for now.

Also what happened to respawning back inside the game arena map after disconnecting. These past 2 days I have constantly been disconnecting inside (not disconnecting anywhere else) and it's getting old. Today I haven't been able to finish a single game because I keep disconnecting inside.

Unsure, going to be looking in to it though, now that we're back from the holidays.
 

---

 

 

Okay, so a major issue I'm reading about, is sleep. This I think everyone can agree upon that. However a solution as what would be an acceptable change to make it more balanced, cannot, whether the idea is the cooldown is too short or the effect is too long. Truth being, I like both where they are, however what I'm reading between the lines is this, the effect is what's hurting the PvP experience.

 

So, giving that some consideration and reading between the lines of where the issue lies. I've given this as a task to be worked on as a solution.

 

A new stat type, when affected by a sleep status through PvP means (cast on you by a player) you will be given a temporary status (We'll call it "rested" for now) that will last longer than the cooldown for sleep.

• This 'rested' state, will reduce the chance of being affected by the 'sleep' status a second time from any source.
• If you are put to sleep, while under the 'rested' status, it will add to the 'rested' status, making further attempts to be put to sleep even more difficult.
• Concept is put to make it so if you are put to sleep 2 times while under the 'rested' status, it will make you immune to sleep for the duration of the 'rested' status after.

[jerremy]

A new stat type, when affected by a sleep status through PvP means (cast on you by a player) you will be given a temporary status (We'll call it "rested" for now) that will last longer than the cooldown for sleep.

• This 'rested' state, will reduce the chance of being affected by the 'sleep' status a second time from any source.
• If you are put to sleep, while under the 'rested' status, it will add to the 'rested' status, making further attempts to be put to sleep even more difficult.
• Concept is put to make it so if you are put to sleep 2 times while under the 'rested' status, it will make you immune to sleep for the duration of the 'rested' status after.

I like this idea, if it's not too much issue to implement, then I'd love to see this happen.

[DoubleRose]

I like the rested idea.

My statement about sleep was unclear. I was talking about the sleep spell which is an 100% chance to put a single player to sleep, effectively taking them out of battle for five seconds and not the aoe sleep spell.  The rested effect could help this.

[chippy]

weapon augment does not over write the clerics att spd buff any chance of sorting it

[Logi]

 

Mana Brake, the suggestions to increase power and cooldown is good. I'll consider that, because it was originally being balanced as a rate of effect vs rate of use. So as long as this can be kept on the same level, increasing effect and cooldown is good. It allows for the same impact of drain, while removing the constant barrage of its effect and gives a chance for the targeted to counteract it to some degree.
 

Okay, so a major issue I'm reading about, is sleep. This I think everyone can agree upon that. However a solution as what would be an acceptable change to make it more balanced, cannot, whether the idea is the cooldown is too short or the effect is too long. Truth being, I like both where they are, however what I'm reading between the lines is this, the effect is what's hurting the PvP experience.

 

So, giving that some consideration and reading between the lines of where the issue lies. I've given this as a task to be worked on as a solution.

 

A new stat type, when affected by a sleep status through PvP means (cast on you by a player) you will be given a temporary status (We'll call it "rested" for now) that will last longer than the cooldown for sleep.

• This 'rested' state, will reduce the chance of being affected by the 'sleep' status a second time from any source.
• If you are put to sleep, while under the 'rested' status, it will add to the 'rested' status, making further attempts to be put to sleep even more difficult.
• Concept is put to make it so if you are put to sleep 2 times while under the 'rested' status, it will make you immune to sleep for the duration of the 'rested' status after.

 

 

Why increase the power of manabreak? With 1 sp cost almost every character has this skill, keep it as it is and just increase the cooldown. They can still all target one player and drain their mana but this requires teamwork, as you intent it to be I presume, and not as some spam skill to cast every few seconds.... The effect of manabreak is already increased by getting more charm, if people want stronger debuffs they will have to increase their charm, as you intented it.

 

Added a rested state to me makes pvp just that much more complicated, not that I wouldnt understand how it works but its another thing to balance and look out for. If you dont want to limit the amount of clerics couldnt we make it so they system puts at least 1 cleric on each side regardless of with who they grouped up. I'll gladly play the other side if there are just 2 clerics, so the war will be more fun. Not the buffs.. the heals, they make a difference.

 

I am willing to give the rested thing a try but I think balancing the clerics across war makes more sense, that or increasing the cooldown on the sleep aoe. I see it more as something you use when you are ganged as cleric to get away, like how the bourgs Jury Rigging is a short 20 sec super AP buff to end a battle ( like I said before). What do you see the sleep aoe as, what is its intented use in gameplay.

[DoubleRose]

weapon augment does not over write the clerics att spd buff any chance of sorting it

 

Mental Focus has the same issue

[Phish]

While I don't disagree with implementing the rested status the sleeps aren't the real problem. I don't even think Clerics' sleep cloud is that bad anymore and it's not even the reason why wars with many clerics are awful. It might add to it slightly, but the main reason are the heals.

[Leonis]

weapon augment does not over write the clerics att spd buff any chance of sorting it

Mental Focus has the same issue

 

Yes, there are many other personal skill buffs that we're going to start converting over like we did for Berserk and Evasion Guard as it seems to work well. But other balances will need to be put in place because of the stacking potential.

 

While I don't disagree with implementing the rested status the sleeps aren't the real problem. I don't even think Clerics' sleep cloud is that bad anymore and it's not even the reason why wars with many clerics are awful. It might add to it slightly, but the main reason are the heals.

There are actually some other planned effects that I'm working on implementing that will be a counter to excessive healing. Can't explain now, still in planning, but as a recognized aspect of game play with no actual interrupting counter (to the ability to heal, not cast spells) I'm working on something. Should help with the issue as well as add some additional strategic aspects to PvP builds.

[Bendersmom]

But the heals, if healing the players, is not the real problem since if there are only 1 or 2 clerics on a side it is hard to heal the team.  The problem comes in when there are many clerics on a team which leads to a stalemate basically or the clerics that are healing the crystal for points and not the team.  The cooldowns for heals works to keep the spamming down in general.  And if the 1 or 2 clerics are muted, stunned, slept or have no mana the heals really don't cause any problems, since there are not many then.  So I don't understand your statements about excessive healing.  There are plenty of CDs that are played with only one cleric on a team.  

[Phish]

There are actually some other planned effects that I'm working on implementing that will be a counter to excessive healing. Can't explain now, still in planning, but as a recognized aspect of game play with no actual interrupting counter (to the ability to heal, not cast spells) I'm working on something. Should help with the issue as well as add some additional strategic aspects to PvP builds.

 

One thing I am doubtful about is that this may still boil down to the number of clerics. If there is only one cleric hindering their ability to heal will be devastating compared to if there are 5 clerics. But, we have no information yet so we'll have to wait and see.

[Nifa]

Re: cleric aoe sleep problem
 
Simple counter: work with your team and plan with your team not to group so much.

Why can't we purify sleep?

[Mystiqueforce]

the number of cleric per side is the issue.. try having 5 clerics vs 1 in 3 consecutive matches.. you can't even keep your team alive because of the cooldown of heals and on top of that they mute and drain your mana.

 

1 to 2 clerics offers somewhat of a challenge to players while having 3 or more just make clerics fat and lazy

[Bendersmom]

the number of cleric per side is the issue.. try having 5 clerics vs 1 in 3 consecutive matches.. you can't even keep your team alive because of the cooldown of heals and on top of that they mute and drain your mana.

 

1 to 2 clerics offers somewhat of a challenge to players while having 3 or more just make clerics fat and lazy

 

Exactly.  There are a number of games where there is one cleric on one team and more than 3 on the other.  Even 2 clerics vs 5 is horrible.  And if you decrease heals that 1 or 2 clerics will make no difference at all.  The best matches have 1-2 clerics on each side.  Once the number of clerics gets unbalanced and there are more than 3 clerics the game gets either completely lopsided or very easy for one team.  

[Logi]

Why can't we purify sleep?

 

We are able to purify sleep, because of the massive amount if sleep we often keep the tactic of leaving one cleric way in the back, not near the group. Using aoe purify then cancels the sleep making people able to move again. This way its actually smarter to wait for the opposing cleric the w aste their sleep on running into the group and sleeping them, in anticipation of the champs/aoes running in and doing their thing as they try to whipe the party from the map.

 

Funny as it is, its actually a good idea to mute champs as well, most clerics dont purify and the time it takes to purify them is another few second for the the team to counter this strategy.

[Bendersmom]

Trying to convince the players to stay spread out a bit seems to be working lately.  And staying in the back as the cleric and using your range is the best way to play most of the time.  The unique purify skill is great and more need to get it and use it.  I have found that muting the fighters is more beneficial then muting the clerics actually, especially the ones with hard hitting aoes like champs and mages.  I do not have the sleep aoe, one because I think it is a horrible skill that is abused terribly and two because I hate it a lot and therefore don't like to use it on others.  To me it is a lame tactic to just spam that and party heals.  

 

The true problem in CD is the number of clerics (amount) and the unbalanced number of clerics.  The second problem is the fact that a lot of the inexperienced clerics just spam healing the crystal for points and do not really help the team.  Many of those clerics wear high charm gear for the points and therefore have to depend on hiding in the crystal so they don't die as fast.  In so many games I have spent as much time trying to keep clerics alive as the fighters and that is just stupid.  Wear gear to help the team by staying alive.  And use purify constantly to combat the sleeps and mutes etc to the team.  The fighters can't help defend the clerics if they are constantly slept or muted too.