But, it's cool when you vaporize 537 creatures in a murderous orgy of divine fire. They weren't bloodied because minions don't get bloodied, so no foul. Please explain that.
They weren't significantly injured when I attacked them. Sure, the divine power of my god was overwhelming and it's certainly sad that they were so overcome that they fell unconscious/died from the experience, but I didn't violate my oath, so no divine retribution.
Or, you know, basically anything similar.
(Please note that I'm just fluffing to the mechanics. I'm
not trying to justify the use of the word "pacifist", as that is probably unjustifiable for reasons explained by KarinsDad and others.)
I know it's not a popular idea to ban stuff, but I'm really not fond of the healic builds with pacifist healer and optimized astral seals. One person says, hey let's focus fire and take this guy down quick, cleric says no can do, he's bloodied, I'm just gonna hit this dude over here, or give you guys some healing. Sigh, fine we'll take the healing, I wonder why I have these 8 surges on my character sheet. Hey can I spend a surge to do extra damage to that guy? No. Can I spend it so this healic can hurt that guy without being stunned. No. Fine, I attack. Oh look I got some more healing I didn't need, and get to make a saving throw I didn't need, yippee dogs. 8 more rounds of this and he should be dead.
Sorry to be melodramatic. The pacifist healic build just rubs me the wrong way.
From a mechanical point of view, the Pacifist Cleric build is quite viable in a 6 member party and decent in a 5 member party, as long as the rest of the party is willing to follow his lead. Astral Seal, on a hit, lowers an enemy's defenses by 2. If the enemy is normally hit 50% of the time, he is now hit 60% of the time, an increase of 20%. So, against a standard enemy, the Cleric can claim 20% of the damage dealt by those allies who attack the penalized enemy--in a 5 man party where everyone focuses fire, that averages 100% of an ally's damage that the Cleric has contributed (on average, he'll have turned 1 of 5 attacks from a miss to a hit). In a 4 man party, it's 80%, which is reasonable for a leader. Of course, there's a decent amount of variance on exactly what percentage the Cleric is helping with as enemy defenses will vary, and a huge amount of variance on how much his allies will focus fire (or can--if three attacks kill the enemy, obviously the 4th and 5th can't target it). However, those considerations are partially offset by Astral Seal being extra accurate, and further compensated by the healing the power provides.
Similarly, encounter powers that grant stat-mod penalties to defenses (Bane) have a multiplicative effect on party damage, and can be devastating if the party focuses fire. Encounter powers that inflict vulnerability all damage (Exacting Utterance) are nowhere near as potent, but can contribute a large enough amount of damage to be worthwhile, and are potentially superior in an extremely accurate party. Other pacifist powers are probably not worth bothering with from a party DPR standpoint; whether the control and buffing they offer is worth the damage loss is hard to judge, but I believe it is not, and I believe the popularity of these powers contributes to the negative image that "Healics" suffer from.
Built well, placed in a large enough group, and played in a similar style to that of a Warlord--pick the priority accessible target, grant the party large bonuses against that target, get the party to focus fire on the target to exercise those bonuses--the Pacifist Cleric can more than hold his own on the DPR front despite a negligible direct contribution of damage. After all, Bane is essentially the bonus from Warlord's Favor, but applied to the whole party (including the Cleric), with no range limitations, and an extra bonus of a potent debuff to the enemy's attacks should it manage to live long enough to make any. That's worth the loss of 2[W]+stat direct damage.
t~
