Question about Clerics, Standard Sorcerers & Bards

[Srnecka]

Hello,

It's amazing to see all the class upgrades and enrichments implemented as of late! Especially the one for the ever-famished paladins.
However, I can't help but notice that the standard sorcerers, standard clerics and bards seem to be being left out.

So I'd like to ask - will they be getting any love sometime soon?

[Good Character]

How do you mean by "standard" cleric and bard?

[Mattamue]

And the entire song update?

[mourisson1]

Clerics got whole domain overhaul quite recently.

[Skibbles]

Cleric is excellent, but if you're thinking of a casting cleric then they're still bad (offensively speaking; they're still top of the class buffer/healer/support).

However you can still buff/heal/support just as well on a battle chassis.

You're definitely right about sorcerer. I don't think I've seen it touched since the rise and fall of weave master like 5 years ago.

[Edens_Fall]

Cleric is great overall. Caster cleric is not very good when it comes to offense, thus forced to hide behind others, but still pretty good

[Srnecka]

The clerics and bards have come to mind because of a comparison to similar classes.

- Bards
Compared to other more or less caster classes like Rangers, Paladins, or even Warlocks/Hexes from the arcane spectrum. The songs are lovely and essential to the "feel" of the class I'd say, but something more on mid to late pre-epic levels could be nice to see.

- Clerics
Simply compared to other full divine casters - druids, shamans, favored souls. Shamans' free spell focuses and crafting feat, the unique options of druids, and the resistances of the favoreds.
It doesn't look quite 1:1 with other full divine casting classes, at least not on paper. The extended domains are great, however the class still seems kind of left behind in terms of the flavor bonuses as the character moves up in levels.

[Srnecka]

Then there are the standard sorcerers.

When compared to the wizards, the sorcerers seem to be very much lacking on most fronts. More castings of the same spells is not quite -the- balance when you consider the wizards' free feats, specialisation bonuses, scroll learning, extra language, and maybe something more that slipped the mind.

Those all reflect the wizards having to study the Art for decades or more. However, the sorcerers have their own little things about them which could be built upon in a similar way to make the two classes more equal in their progression. Like the various possible origins of their innate abilities affecting the character.

[Exordius]

Caster cleric is not weak now... with the right domains and with high spell dc you can dish out damage or cripple opponents with debuffs by the bucketful. And its just going to get better as new domains are added and the new cleric path is added...

[Eyeliner]

I think some of the new domains are quite competitive though it depends what you pick. A high wisdom caster cleric also has a lot of spell slots compared to a wizard so you can afford to prepare risky DC-dependent spells they can't. I'm not going to claim they are top tier PVP but I wouldn't write them off either, especially if you find a particularly effective domain combo.

[MissEvelyn]

Caster cleric is not weak now... with the right domains and with high spell dc you can dish out damage or cripple opponents with debuffs by the bucketful. And its just going to get better as new domains are added and the new cleric path is added...

You can do the exact same thing with a regular Cleric, but with armor on.

What people are saying is that Healer cleric is now terrible in comparison to regular cleric. And I agree in that assessment.

[Waldo52]

Clerics are fine, overpowered even. They have a great amount of flavorful custom content.

I agree on sorcerers. I'm sure they're more than powerful enough but there does seem to be a lack of content to keep them feeling fresh. D&D 3.X always kind of neglected the class.

Unpopular opinion about bards: song and dance in battle is a little silly. It's not an Arelith thing, it's a D&D thing. But objectively speaking they were pretty thoroughly updated with all those song options.

[Nintendo Entertainment System]

Healer cleric being terrible in comparison to other clerics seems to be a feature. Contributors have said elsewhere that the goal is to gut Healer cleric and distribute its abilities to domains in an ongoing effort to phase out the old path.

I do agree about sorcerers. Mechanically they're powerful, but they've been offered precious little in the way of flavor or cookies compared to the other spellcasting classes. Free Brew Potion was a nice addition, but it'd be good to see some other perks added to one of the core DnD archetypes.

[MissEvelyn]

Healer cleric being terrible in comparison to other clerics seems to be a feature. Contributors have said elsewhere that the goal is to gut Healer cleric and distribute its abilities to domains in an ongoing effort to phase out the old path.

The problem with that statement is that domain cookies are given to ALL Clerics, not just Healers. So essentially when they took Overheal - the MAIN selling point of the Healer - away from Healer and put it under Healing domain, they nerfed ALL Healers (even those without Healing domain), and as a consequence they buffed regular Clerics who have the Healing domain.

And if you're one of the few ones who likes to play pure-classed Healers, you're now going to have a really bad time because you either don't have Overheal anymore (due to not having Healing as a domain), or you do have it but it is now 60% worse than it was before. You could overheal your party with 150 temporary HP as a level 30 Healer. Now that same ability only goes up to 60 temporary HP, which is laughable in comparison. Never mind the fact that most optimal builds can dish 3 times that amount of damage in a single hit, and monsters you're fighting at level 30 can most certainly also deal equal to or more than that amount of damage in one hit, especially if they score a critical hit.
But again, if you don't have the Healing domain as a Healer, you're going to have to sacrifice an entire domain just to get Overheal. Not really worth it, if you ask me, especially with how amazing many of the domains have become.

It is a shame that the entire class has to be nerfed because there exist multi-class combinations out there that make it (according to the devs) overpowered. But this is the direction they've chosen to go, so that's where we are

[Skibbles]

Healers are being nerfed because, as I understand it anyway, they will be entirely removed soon. I'm not sure concerns about their lowered power will even be relevent much longer.

[Skarain]

Sorcerers got Brew Potion for free some years ago, to make them equal crafting wise with Wiz.

Divine Sorc is problematic, as any flavour Sorc wouls get may also buff these through the roof.

[MissEvelyn]

I've always believed Divine Grace should be capped by paladin / other-divine-grace-class levels. Similar to how the damage bonus from INT is capped for Swashbucklers. It simply makes more sense. The more you are trained in your holy things, the more your divine grace grows