Someone commented that Clerics had all kinds of CC abilities at their disposal. I then said I was going to do some homework and come back. Well, after a day and a half of no internet, I jumped on the opportunity to finish what I had started two days ago. The same way I break down Rogues... instead, I break down Clerics. When enough information is out on Mages, I think I'll do one for them too. I've already done it for Warriors, but that's only because only two souls are available in role builder form and nothing is present on the wiki.Anyway... on to the Codex...
Knock Backs: 1 (root; level 18, 30s cd)
AoE Fears: 1 (root; level 20, 7m radius, 8s dur, 1m cd)
Confuses: 1 (branch; 21 pts)
Interesting thing about Inquisitors, they have about 4 life taps they can have running on their opponent. So depending on the potential damage output, there's a lot of sustainability with this soul. If the Inquisitor decides to go in about 31 points, and drop another 20 into Shaman, then they could potentially be hitting quite hard, all the time. It depends on what the Shaman is capable of, which I will get into later on since I think my plan for today is to just chill and go through each class.
Inquisitors also have an odd augment to their playstyle, they have a lot of channeled abilities. I think in the area of 2-4 of them, that deal damage. Throw in the Snare, to give them distance and the Confuse to make sure you are planted long enough to achieve it, they can hit you with attacks while you close in on them or run away... all the while, their DoTs are ticking.
Strong looking melee healer in PvP, I think.
Snares: 1 (branch; 6 pts, 15s duration)
Roots: 1 (branch; 12 pts, 3s duration)
Interrupts: 1 (branch; 16 pts)
Stuns: 1 (branch; 27 points, 15s cd)
Combat Res: 1 (branch; 31 pts, 100% restored)
Wow. That is one impressive list, and one impressive soul. Justicars basically beat heals out of people through a combination of Life damage and weapon damage. They can increase their damage done while wielding two handers as well. I feel I have to make a special note about Doctrine of Dedication; a level 12 root ability, it allows the Justicar to increase the damage of themselves and their party by 5% for each conviction... given that there is a self buff at level 4 to grant convictions every time they deal melee ability damage, that is a lot of convictions... and a lot of extra damage should they manage to save up 5 or 6, maybe even 8 or 9 (45% increased damage for 10s on demand... what?). I will also point out another thing. Their AoE heals do 45% of the heal as damage if they invest the branching up to acquire it (23 pts). Rogue tanks will benefit from a Justicar that has gone 32 points in. At that point they get a single target buff that heals the ally for half of the damage they do in melee. We're all epeen over dps anyway, so the heal will prove rather effective in tight situations. It has a 12s duration and 30s cd, this combined with the Justicar beating on things around the Rogue tank, could effectively mean solo healing content... maybe. Speaking of solo healing, 38 sees Doctrine of Virtue. It is the exact same as DoD above, except it increases the amount of healing received. Again, 8 or 9 convictions is 45% increased healing. They can release these convictions every 6 seconds. On top of that, they can give their melee heals a 15% chance to heal the allies around them for the amount of damage done... all but the Justicar.
Whoa.
Mortal Strike Debuff: 1 (branch; 23 pts, 25% reduction)
That's... about it. Think of every other Cleric you've seen in MMOs, and this soul is pretty standard to the people who enjoy being a focal point in raid healing. Their abilities are neat though, so check em out. Being able to shave off 50% of your HP, and invest that onto someone else's current and maximum hp is pretty interesting for pairing the Purifier close to whoever is going to be the main tank. The MS debuff is also interesting, then again they have a lot of things to augment their fire damage, so they aren't quite as passive as other MMO iterations have been.
Heal. Tank. Wow, this soul is pretty damn cool. In PvP, know that any Sentinel at least 28 points in comes with a 100% damage reflect for 6 seconds after every time the Sentinel casts a heal. Just run that through your head for a moment. Because what that means is a Sentinel can stand there in the middle of a group of people, spam healing themselves (while being healed by others) and doing damage while anything done to them is reflected. "Don't hit the Sentinel!" will hopefully become common knowledge. This also makes a solo Sentinel quite hard to gank unless your damage per second exceeds their healing per second. It's possible that while the information didn't say anything about an activated ability, it could still be one, so it might not be so intense. Useful either way, though.
Stealth Detection (branch; 18 pts)
Stealth Deny (branch; 23 pts, 6s duration, 75% chance on hit when a Vengeance is active)
Charge (root; level 10)
Stuns: 2 (charge; 2s, 28 pt branch increases to 5s - Massive Blow; level 16 ability, branched at 28 pts, 3s stun, 15s cd)
Snares: 1 (root: level 12, 50%, 15 seconds, applied on hit for 6 seconds when activated)
Interrupts: 1 (root; level 38, 25% chance on hit for 6-12 seconds upon activation)
Cleric meets Warrior meets Rogue. If these guys could stealth, they would make some of the best gankers in the game. Rogues can't get away from them. Assassins can't even Vanish out. Assassins and Nightblades have their cleanse, yes, but then if the timing is wrong it'll just be applied again and cleanse will be on cd. Throw in the fact that they can charge you, stun you for 5 seconds, beat on you, and then stun you for another 3 seconds and then beat on you some more. Does that sound familiar? This Cleric has a stun rotation just like Assassins do. Their branch talents and abilities support a crit heavy build as well, since they can heal themselves for 2% of their maximum health each time they crit while a vengeance is active. On top of this, they come with 100 resistance to 2 schools of magic at a time through branch advancement and 30 to Water and Air that is native to them alone. Their 31 point branch ability makes every single one of their melee attacks crit for 9 seconds. Ouch. Their 51 pt ability however, is an extra 7 damage dealt to enemies around their target with each hit... meh.
This will probably be the enigma of the Cleric souls. Good ones will be hard to handle, especially if they have a friend. They will however, be victims of CC as they have no way to clear them once they've been applied.
Knock Back: 1 (root; level 14, 15s cd)
Spell Reflect: 1 (root; level 18, 3s duration)
Root/Snare Break: 1 (branch; 11 pts, also makes them immune to new ones for ? seconds (+ 6 seconds at 18 pts))
Every ability for these guys starts with "A wave of water...". Everything they do is over time, whether it be healing or damage. They have a number of ways to accomplish both. They seem like a very mana intensive soul, but at the same time Wisdom is by far their most important stat. If Wisdom correlates to mana pool (like Int in other games) then they might not have to worry about mana at all. Especially since there are abilities that use the Warden's Wisdom value as a variable.
This is the most support oriented soul among the 6 currently available on the role builder. I don't really anticipate it being used too much in PvP, outside of being an addition to one of the melee healer souls above to provide more longevity in PvP and support in a raid situation.
Official (not up yet) - Abilities (not up yet) - Builder (not up yet)
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Quote from Delith, an attendee of Trion's Gamer Day event.
Cabalist - I didn't get to go super far up the tree, but it felt to me like a well-loved shadow priest style class. I initially got a Sigil, which is a debuff of sorts that you place on one mob at a time for whatever purpose it served.
This one in particular would sit on the mob for x amount of seconds then disappear unless the mob was killed, or a certain amount of damage done by yours truly was met. Once killed or that damage minimum was met, it would do an AOE 'blast' that would hit any other enemies in the area. When I got higher, this was much more useful for defeating water rifts. Simply put, if I did this a few times on a harder mob with others around, a couple rotations of this would kill the surrounding mobs with ease, and one nuke usually met the damage minimum.
I also had a good nuke as well. Between the two, I was very self-sufficient. It seemed like a very good soloing combo, but unless I switched my points to be heavier in the Purifier tree, my heals were not as strong.
I'm interested in being able to break down the Druid and Cabalist (the two missing Cleric souls) like I have the other ones. Clerics are quite interesting in this game. The fact that they are capable of so much really opens up the potential of situations a Cleric can change on the battlefield. One moment you're tanking everyone's damage, and the next you're charging after people and locking them down with a huge hammer. These are interesting concepts to give to what is normally a stand there and stare at hotbars kind of archetype.
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