Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Bard vs Chloromancer for support role
Just curious what most people thought of these two soul trees - I had a blast playing them both but sadly I only managed to get into the low teens with each. I know they'll both change dramatically - but Im trying to decide which to roll as my main toon. Unfortunately, since they're both in different classes, I can't pick them both.
Anyone whos' been at the higher level brackets have any comments? Are Chloromancer really able to heal through as good as others? I hear Bards are good AoE heals at 20+ but can't do anything focus'ed. The buffs are also really nice - but I had a ton of fun with the Chloro class as well making it even more difficult.
Opinions or suggestions? For reference, I went Chloro/Warlock/Dom and Bard/Riftstalker/Sab, was considering swapping out Dom for Necro - but I'll straighten out the end talents/trees later once we all learn how the classes operate.
Comments
I play a healing Cleric (Purifier/Warden) in dungeons and i always look for a support class for the group.
I find that bards are much more available and bring a wider range of buffs to the group while the Chloro is mainly support healing. Both are welcome in my groups though
A Bard and I ended up duoing a rift and not dying.
So that was good.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Chloromancer really starts to kick into it's own at 15-20 points into the tree. Warlock is the perfect second. Necro has some synergy as the third soul and having a pet is very nice for when you solo. I also tried Ele for it's pet and for the damage shield. Less synergy on skills, but the Ele pet grabs and holds aggro much better and the damage shield is helpful.
For Beta, I rolled a number of toons to get a feel for how they played during the early levels. For retail, best to only have one character per calling, get to 13 with something efficient, get the other souls via quests, then you can start putting together roles that you find fun and effective. IMO, it's worth the slight diversion of time to grab the other souls when you can. Some combos really surprised me when I experimented with them and occassionally provided nice benefits to the feel of the game experience. Also, some souls and combos really don't come into their own until later, so being willing to level early with builds you may not plan on sticking with later on can be a really good strategy, as well as exposing you to souls you might have skipped otherwise.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
I will be doing Necromancer / Warlock / Chloromancer for PvE and replacing Chloro with Dominator for PvP. Both combinations were fun to play with, incredibly versatile, lots of survivability and not too harsh on mana management. I can't begin to tell you how useful feign death is in the Necromancer tree.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Chloro healing doesn't seem to scale well once you hit 40. Up until then we've had one pretty much main heal all our instances with a bard as support. Hell one group in our guild ran with a justicar tank, 2 bards, and 2 rogues without much trouble at all.
If i had to pick one of the 2 for a 5man instance then i would obviously choose bard but for larger encounters i'm sure having both will be great.
Neither Bard nor Chloromancer were intended to be main healers for instances. They're good enough for regular groups or as you say, by doubling them up, but if you want to do any real healing in groups, you will have to play a cleric. Specifically, it would need to include the Warden or Sentinel or Purfier souls as the rest have marginal healing at best.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
I have to disagree.
It is right in the base description of each soul,
Bard = support, it buffs and heals
Chloro = Healing, it is a healing soul that is it's entire purpose.
Thanks for all the advice guys, great feedback! I'm still torn on which I'll roll with but it'll definitely be one of these two. I was concerned about a few things, such as 1) Seems like a LOT of people roll Rogue but very few are Mages - making me want to roll that class even more and 2) Being able to main heal vs complete support role (so Chloro vs bard) and lastly 3) If I'd have enough "choice" with the Mage.
So for example, if I want to completely change up my playstyle as a Rogue I can tank (Riftstalker), Support (Bard), DPS/Stealth (Assassin), etc. A mage - seems to only have nuke based classes and the one heal tree. Of course, this makes sense - I dont mean I should be a tank as a clothie - but something I was thinking about given you could probably play one class in rift forever given how deep the class system is. I like the diversity of the Rogue class but fear I'll see more than the rest of the classes.
True you cant tank, but you can jump around in your roles to Heal, DPS or Support with buffs/cc.
I played Necro/Chlor/Warlock with most points in Chlor followed by Necro then Lock. The main reason I did this is because I love to DPS but also like to heal. Why not play a dedicated healing class? Other games have soured me on choosing a healing class. With my heart and enjoyment in the DPS, Chloro really provided me with the feel of DPS and the support function of healing.
I was able to get to lvl 23 with that build and have great fun. The necro pet I used as a mana pot on demand and once I was able to develop a good rotation, green scrolling text (heals) were constantly flying to everyone in the group play. For solo, I relied on some of the DoTs and followed through with nukes as needed.
There was a lack of instant cast nukes, but the slow buildup of Debuffs & DoTs made most mobs squirm and die before they got more than one wack on me. This also allowed for tanks to get some aggro prior to going full out and keeping me from insta-death.
Did I mention the battle rez with a short 5min CD? Yeah, Chloromancer is the pinch group saver for those that have environmental awareness when pulls go bad.
I didn't test out the PvP aspect mainly because I wanted to keep something as a surprise and enjoyment factor going into the release of the game. However, I do die quickly when directly targeted unlike the initial Cleric I played in the first 5 betas.
During those first 5 betas I played Justicar/Sentinel/Purifier and learned that Justicar was a very viable tank when paired with the other 2 souls. I just didn't like the melee aspect, hence the change to the RDPS of Chloromancer.
Overall, can't wait till I can role my character and not get it wiped in a few days.
I understand what you are saying here but there is no such thing as a dedicated healing class. There are "callings" some of which have healing "souls" in them and you use these to construct your "role".
The souls in these callings can be dedicated healing souls but not 1 calling in and of itself makes you a healer by choosing it. This is part of what I love about the game. Choice and a bit of outside the box thinking required for figuring out exactly what to make of you opponent in pvp.
...and yes I understand callings are just classes etc but I so much prefer calling them those
I played both a Chloro and Bard up to level 30, they are not primary healers for instances or major rifts. They lack the needed burst healing and spammable power heals needed to be successful. Yes, you can run around with two bards or two chloros and do decently, but it's a much harder road and only well oiled teams will do well with them as primary healers. They are inteded to be support healers, taking up any slack uncovered by a healing cleric.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
I only played a bard to 22 and agree they can not take on a true healing role.
My Chloro/Warlock/Elementalist however I played to 32 on Wolfsbane and had little difficulty healing in instances, rifts or pvp warfronts(unless you want to talk about bonehead pulls and complete messes nothing would have saves lol, we all have those regardless of what we are on). This includes both premades and pugs. Now I will freely admit I cant speak about levels 40-50 but so far its been quite a good ride.
My primary problem with every possible combination of healing cleric I tried was mana in long fights, which I solved very easily on the mage with 6 points into warlock.
Like i said, i've run every instance up to level 40 with a chloro main healing without any issues. It all depends on the level of your group in conjunction with the mob levels. If your group is 3 levels under the mobs in the instance then your tank is going to get destroyed and your chloro isn't going to be able to keep up. This is the problem we ran into at level 42 and had to switch to a warden.
You noticed that I used the phrase, "well oiled teams"?
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Of course I did, but I didnt have these "well oiled teams" on most runs. I was merely admitting there are times when no healer could save a group due to error or unintended stupidity by someone present. In those situations ya die and respawn and try again.
In other words Im not claiming Cholor is Superman that can heal. Im saying that it can heal and will fail at times as any other healer soul could/would.
This is a very interesting discussion...
Question to the mages - at what level in Warlock do you find is sufficient? I've seen anything from 6 points to nearly full - not sure why that threshold of 6 but that's what I've been seeing.
In addition, do you find its helpful to go with a nuker style (like Ele) and does this help you gain health for you and your allies?
In the healer role in my 30s I was only 6 points into warlock and I think 5 into ele with all the rest into chloro. I really only go after warlock to get the health to mana ability.
In my dps role Im primarily warlock with enough chloro to insta cast bloom and 5 points into ele.
Missed this part;
Only yoor life damage gets converted to healing so anything that adds damage to every magic type or crit chance will add to your healing, but big nukes of other types of damage will not. The reason for the 5 points I have in ele, for example, is for the 5% bonus to spell crits.
Cholormancers are real main healers and bards really are not.
However one thing to realize is multiple bards together can probably be good enough and you don't really need a main healer.
Rift is more flexible than other games similar to it. Don't get too tied down to dogma.
I am almost certain that 5 bard/rangers can clear most instances and do it fast. 5 bards in a party will mean that a like 2 of the bards will have no buffing to do really, but just the overlapping cadences is HUGE and perpetual healing. Throw in the burst heal finishers when needed.
2 Bard/nightblades/ranger (21+/8+/0 pts wise) will put out alot of healing, alot of damage and will have a 45 sec ranged mez on each one and have two offtank pets. This combo could probably be filled with ANY other classes IMO.
At level 28 by bard/nb had a crit rate of close to 20% and his cadence healed 160 over 2 seconds and critted for 250 over 2 seconds. If you had 5 of these going that is over 800 hp healing all 5 bards and all 5 pets every 2 seconds. Each heal finsiher is 350 instant heal. You can do that every 5 seconds. So every 5 seconds you get an optional additional 1800 hp healing to everyone. But since candence will most likely do all the healing you need on trash mobs you just use 5 codas of fury.
5 45sec mezzes, 5 semi-tanks, 5 spammable aoe finsihers and that much healing. Think about it. You can easily single pull most any group with that much mezzing. You can tank 5 different mobs with five different pets and aoe all the mobs down. With 5 bards overlapping cadence a normal ranger pet can easily tank a normal elite, and probably do two. And even on bosses you probably only need 2-3 of the bards doing Coda of restoration and the other ones can use damage codas. Might be a bit slow on some bosses. But all in all probably work very well.
I haven't thought about it, but this may also be possible with mage necro/ele and cholor combo. I have done the numbers for bard though and I am quite confident that it works out fine and should be enough DPS to be fast as well.
Keep in mind ALL bard heals are AOE. And cadence itself is alot of healing and is also the bards main damage dealer and with approprioate enchaments like the nightblade skills does quite nice damage. The bard finishers are quite good damage especially when enhanced with bard/night blade +15% damage skills. And bards can spam their aoe finisher.
The real question is, "how often do you really need a 'Main healer' ". Or perhaps the question will boil down to healing type not main healer. Most likely you will need certain types of healer for bosses with seriously dangerous initial spike damage.
One of the weakness of both bards and Chloromancers is they are slow to their burst heal, and one of the reasons bards cannot truly main heal alone is their burst heal is low in numbers.
However unlike other types of healers bards add together superbly and go forever, literaly forever. Of course bards also can't heal for jack without a enemy around.
With a bard in the group a Choloromancer IS a perfectly fine main healer. They shore up a choloro's weakness. Even a minor in bard with just the heal on cadence can be enough.
In general with a full bard in the group you should not be thinking about "main heal". You need someone to supplement the bard to take over burst heal.
For trash mobs a bard + choloro aoe Hots are gonna work very well. For bosses bard + spike heals will be needed. The same can be said for Choloromancer. But Choloromancer can provide the large spike heals to the tank. A bard can only do small spike heal to the group.
A cholormancer alone can main heal. But may have some trouble if things get messy. Just by using cadence a bard makes the chloromancer's healing way less hectic. They can throw the occasional group HoT and then concnetrate on making sure any large health deficit gets corrected by a large spike heal.
I think its important to keep in mind. That you should most likely only in extreme circumstances have a "main healer" who does nothing but heal and does very little damage. If you configure your party and roles right you should have 5 players fully capable of doing good DPS while also healing and occasionally doing emergency healing.
This applies to clerics as well. And remember that for bosses which require a main dedicated healer you simply switch roles near him.
For most stuff I suspect you want one guy who can nuke and throw out some Spike heals and another guys who can DPS while doing AOE maintenance healing.
So there are in many cases two roles "Spike healer" and "maintenance healer". Some people call this "Main" and "Support". But I think this is not going to be the way it turns out. Because you should not need to have anyone so dedicated to either one that they cannot also put out very very respectable DPS, outside of certain boss battles.
If you relegate a cleric to all heal and no DPS then you will probably lose more DPS than you could possibly gain from the other party members. A DPS cleric can do as much damage as other DPSers. Even at half strength you would need a palyer who does 150% of expected damage.
So I would suggest that rather than thinking about what your heal role should be you instead jsut cover the two heal bases of Spike and Maintenance and worry more about how to get good DPS while covering only ONE of these heal roles during normal play. Possibly keeping a backup role for bosses with huge crazy spike you need to overheal on.
I played my Bard to level 30 and they are a great support class but definitely not a strong solo healer class. In Warfronts a Bard typically will be top healer as they keep all the members in the raid party getting continuous heals but stronger healers are needed to fill in the holes. Bards will be one of those classes where a good player will outshine a bad one signifigantly so if you meet a bard that can pla their class well make a friend out of them
Oh I should read the tooltip more closely as I didn't realize that. Thanks for clearing that up - so using an Ele with a bunch of points won't actually do much in the way of giving me extra heals - makes me more inclined to roll with Dom as my 3rd I think.
That Warlock ability is fantastic actually - I can't imagine not taking a Lock as one of my trees with a Mage - just to get that if nothing else.
How do you find your Mage in PVP fights? That's probably where i'll spend most of my time, although I will do lots of rift hunting and dungeons too. Likely questing will be a filler - but as I noticed with rift, things are so quick and so much going on you dont really get time for "fillers". I can go all day through rifts, Invasions, pvp and level faster than if I just solo quested my way up. /bravo Trion
Great post Gestalt - thank you for taking the time to write all that out.
I completely understand where you're coming from and Im very pleased that Rift is taking away some of that "tank/dps/healer" mentality. I admit, I need to break myself of that too.
Sounds like both of these are up my alley - I think my wife is going to play a Chloromancer actually - which makes me really want to play the Bard even more so! I think that's the route I'm going to go... although if she ends up playing a Warrior I may decide differently. Overall - they both sound very good - I'm most pleased with the skill and tree selection in Rift.
As a slight off topic question - what do you guys recommend for the other 2 trees' as a bard? Any recommendations (I dont really trust the suggested pairings in the games tooltips, although maybe I should). I heard Riftstalker is a decent choice...
I had a great time in warfronts(I dont play open pvp so cant answer to that).
I found my contributions quite noticable when healing.
For dps though I still have more fun when I switch to the rogue(marksman primary). In fact you can do nice buffing and support healing with decent single target range dps on a MM/Bard.
Thanks ^^ I will have to try Bard/MM type build and see how it goes. I really enjoyed my time in beta and very much looking forward to Thursday's head start. A shame I have to work Friday
lol