Discussion: Priest

Quite a few things to answer. I'll split answers to Tevoli and rerp
 
@ Tevoli:
What do you want to say with all these pet references? Of course pets are broken... they even were pre-AoV where an Elder lvl1 or WW lvl1 suddenly made it possible for every class to solo Goblin Leader for Oridecon and rendered Priests quite useless in raids, if multiple WWs were stacked.
 
Would I call that a "positive thing" that should be achieved with skills as well.... nope! If a pet defines your DPS by most parts (see crecentia, etc.) we don't need classes anymore and we could transform ragnarok into some sort of Pokémon.
 

It's safe to say that no Priest want to see these kind of requirements in the party chat or menu: LF FS Priest with lvl4 DOT pet or LF DPS Priest with healing pet.

There was a time where you could replace DoT pet with "30sec Embus" in your statement. Do I want that one back? - Not at all.
 
But beside of that. Yes, I really wish I could return to the old raids, where you would look for a good (defense-oriented) tank, a couple of FS healers and some decent DPS. And if I could, I would also remove all the pets from RO2, because they started to make stats, skill builds, cards, titles, etc. more or less irrelevant. A WillowWorker was more important for a knight than focussing on defense.
 

Will it scares potential players away when the game made every class not overly dependent on each others?

I could say quite the contrary is the case. There were more players playing the game when raids were extremely hard and dedicated classes very common. See, if you want to play a DPS class like a Rogue or Sin, you will be proud of your damage output and focus on that. Do I need that class do be able to take up the healer role or tank role as well? Not at all.
 
And - as I've written - that's the case in so many other games as well... and many of them are much more successful as RO2 as well.

If I play a Rogue in Dragon Age, Dungeons-&-Dragons, Titan Quest, Dark Souls or Skyrim, I accept that I am quite squishy. Does it "scared" players that such a Rogue can't just use different skills / powers / talents to be a tanky class or a powerful group healer as well?

Dark Souls was so popular BECAUSE you couldn't be good at everything, because you have to dedicate yourself to a certain role and BECAUSE the quests were soo hard.
 

Sorcerer has been doing Hybrid since day one. How many Sorcerer in the game that weren't Hybrid (FS+DPS) ?

That's quite a personal experience. I knew quite a few Sorcerers who played strictly FS as well... and I also knew a lot that turned out to haven't leveled Deluge or maxed LoR and called themself "Hybrid".
 
And - as I've already written as well - Hybrid had a different meaning back then. It meant - half a  healer, half a DPS ... and not "full support AND full DPS depending on the current situation" as it is right now.
 

So where is this urgent to call out Priest for doing Hybrid coming from? Let's be honest here. PVP?

IMO also wrong. In WoE, the damage output of a Soulmaker is rather kind of low. But the Cure makes him still one of the best-to-have classes around there and are usually quite a high-priority target.

The current Priest on contrast is considered OP by most people BECAUSE he can DoT players in WoE while running around and being able to outheal anything but purely aggressive attacks.
 

Grind, PVP, Hybrid (Grind+PVP) are the real builds.

So it wasn't because of no clear distinction between FS and DPS for Priest here. It was no clear distinction between Grind and PVP. Every Priest in the game was indeed Hybrid, not FS+DPS, but Grind+PVP. With or without the 20 skill points.

IMO also wrong. I could either play my Priest as either DPS in a grinding party (using ME+Oratio a lot), as a Hybrid (stunning + healing) or as a full support.

So the amount of grinding isn't such a defining factor for a mixture of roles. However, the post-AoV inbalances made it all too easy to just level Renovatio and Cure and call yourself "Full Support".

@ rerp
 
If I haven't made myself clear on that. I disagreed on the statement that it's just "fair" for a priest to being able to take up the support role and the DPS role at the same time in that a manner that ony your choice to cast a heal rather than a damaging skill puts you into a different role momentarily.
 

In a different RPG since we're making references anyway, the potential of all-out DPS and all-out Support or all-out Tank can all be available to a single class; but constraints are in place to prevent you from doing so.

Could you name that RPG you have in mind?
 
Of course there are quite a few games where you start out without any significant class, but in most cases I know, you have do decide yourself for one way quite early... as soon as you spent statpoints, etc.
 
Of course, RO2 could have copied RO1 and make everyone start as a Novice, delaying your decision - or dedication as I would call it - to a later moment. But that wouldn't change a thing here.
 
 

I see that it's currently badly implemented with RO2 Priests. What we need is something like what Pre-AoV Sorcerers needed to consider before, build-wise.

 
There's the first divergence between us two. I don't want the Priest to ever be able to take up the tank role as I never want the Warrior to ever be able to take up the full support role. That's because you've had your chance to start a different class.
 
In Leaque of Legends it's the same. Once you've chosen a champion, you're limited to a specific subset of possibilities. That makes every class unique. If LoL would allow you to choose between all available skills, you wouldn't have to implement that many classes. A single "could become everything" class would suffice.
 
And that's the same case in RO2. If a Priest is easily able to take up different roles, why ever play a different class? Let's also allow every class to use every sort of weapon, every sort of gear... and you would have totally lost the flavor.
 

In PVE, everything actually blends fine even though we all know they fixed that the wrong way; hence all the big numbers with the bosses.

IMO not really true. As a Warrior or Rogue f.e. I had quite a hard time trying to grind on my own. On contrast. I've already written a couple of times that my Priest was able to kill mukas every other second and with an occational Reno + HH, could do that for hours easily.

Rogues f.e. do have some serious issues grinding as well, because their AoE is considered quite low.... and it surely is, if I compare it to an Oratio-boosted ME.

And even in Sanctum, you'll see significant issues. Monks can't really compete with Warriors f.e. because BT can push the threat of a Warrior ways ahead, while he's still able to reach 90% defense rate as well. So the monk class is screwed for getting more DEF per VIT... and not more HPs.

Given that you're all the same level and are in the appropriate level range Renovatio won't keep the party constantly alive nor will Cure be sufficient to keep the tank maxed on the boss fight.

Actually, the 14k Cure IS enough to keep a tank alive most of the times, unless a certain boss puts debuffs on you. Maxing HH and Reno f.e. is also more than enough. So in both cases, 10~13 skillpoints are enough.

Healing requires a hell lot of focus if you're not working with an overleveled tank and if you're in such a position, you won't usually have time throw in AoEs.

Believe me, a Soulmaker has enough time to cast attack skills between the Cures and a Priest can do the same. As I've answered to Solemia already, I leveled ALL the heal skills - yes even Coloseo Heal - because each of them had it's specific usecase and they where all necessary. So IF you want to write something about "skills" in combination with heals, I hope you don't mean threat issues with HH alone...

Talking about another class; for example, the tank classes that we have that also dish out very high DPS, is also another problem with values, not mechanics per se. If you jacked down the Warrior damage by 90%, but increased threat generation by 1000%, you'd get the effect you want.

That's partly true, partly false in my opinion. Before AoV, a tank would have to decide whether to choose Dodge+Parry or Haste+Vigor gear. In the same manner, he had to decide whether to choose an defensive aura / shape or an offensive one. Back then, my main-tank Warrior had this build. You see, neither Brandish Storm, nor Battle Leap.... not even Rage Strike... and he was never able to dish out as much damage as a Sorcerer or Ranger.

And I still consider that time the "better ones", just BECAUSE I had to limit myself to a certain role. I was proud once I was able to be tank Aromine, Ratmaster or CD bosses.

Sure, it would have been nice, if the offensive skills like Aura Sword would have been much better to allow a Warrior to compete with other DPS classes, but that still means that you don't have enough skillpoints to do both things.

... And that's exactly the current state of the Priest. Since Heal, Coloseo Heal, Assumptio and maybe even Sanctuary are rendered useless, the class has too many unspent skillpoints to focus on the DPS tree as well (or vice versa).

What do you want to say with all these pet references? Of course pets are broken... they even were pre-AoV where an Elder lvl1 or WW lvl1 suddenly made it possible for every class to solo Goblin Leader for Oridecon and rendered Priests quite useless in raids, if multiple WWs were stacked.
 
Would I call that a "positive thing" that should be achieved with skills as well.... nope! If a pet defines your DPS by most parts (see crecentia, etc.) we don't need classes anymore and we could transform ragnarok into some sort of Pokémon.
 

There was a time where you could replace DoT pet with "30sec Embus" in your statement. Do I want that one back? - Not at all.

Pretty clear to me the pets usage has left bad taste on you, so I'm not going to elaborate any further about that, because in the end we both will agree to disagree.

I could say quite the contrary is the case. There were more players playing the game when raids were extremely hard and dedicated classes very common. See, if you want to play a DPS class like a Rogue or Sin, you will be proud of your damage output and focus on that. Do I need that class do be able to take up the healer role or tank role as well? Not at all.

 
And - as I've written - that's the case in so many other games as well... and many of them are much more successful as RO2 as well.

 

If I play a Rogue in Dragon Age, Dungeons-&-Dragons, Titan Quest, Dark Souls or Skyrim, I accept that I am quite squishy. Does it "scared" players that such a Rogue can't just use different skills / powers / talents to be a tanky class or a powerful group healer as well?

 

Dark Souls was so popular BECAUSE you couldn't be good at everything, because you have to dedicate yourself to a certain role and BECAUSE the quests were soo hard.
 

Different game different rule. Just because Rogues in other games are like what you have described doesn't mean RO2's Rogue should be the carbon copy. Don't get me wrong, though, I don't want every class to be capable of doing everything. I just want every class to be affordable to perform roles outside their norm with certain degree of rendering. I believe versatile gameplay will make room for harder mechanic challenging instances in the future, unless moving inches away from spot and repeating set of skills is what you called dynamic. 

The game population was more lively when the raids were harder is only partly because everyone was bended to their own roles during that times. Something to chase after and look forward to, made up the other part. 

That's quite a personal experience. I knew quite a few Sorcerers who played strictly FS as well... and I also knew a lot that turned out to haven't leveled Deluge or maxed LoR and called themself "Hybrid".

 
And - as I've already written as well - Hybrid had a different meaning back then. It meant - half a  healer, half a DPS ... and not "full support AND full DPS depending on the current situation" as it is right now.
 

IMO also wrong. In WoE, the damage output of a Soulmaker is rather kind of low. But the Cure makes him still one of the best-to-have classes around there and are usually quite a high-priority target.

 

The current Priest on contrast is considered OP by most people BECAUSE he can DoT players in WoE while running around and being able to outheal anything but purely aggressive attacks.
 

 

IMO also wrong. I could either play my Priest as either DPS in a grinding party (using ME+Oratio a lot), as a Hybrid (stunning + healing) or as a full support.

 

So the amount of grinding isn't such a defining factor for a mixture of roles. However, the post-AoV inbalances made it all too easy to just level Renovatio and Cure and call yourself "Full Support".

 

I respect your opinion because you're entitled to it and I've already addressed these on some part of my previous post that you didn't quoted. 

@Greven

With the first statement, what I meant is, just like with the Sorcerer as example, the capability is available, but the game prevents you from taking it, such as in RO1 where stats actually matter and DPS would be a totally different build, or skill points are scarce and even if you can hybrid and take up all roles, you lose out on maximum potential by scattering points all over. 

As with the further issue on roles, I'm very sorry but I can't answer you definitively.  I've been in a party with all Priests taking up different roles - but the tanking one is way high level and gear, and at the current state of the game, that actually works. To an extent, it will never be impossible for the class to tank for a setting where the mobs are way below level, like how 50 below mobs barely do any damage to you. Adjustments are necessary for that, of course.

With regards to most stuff downwards, it is al l clearly an issue with the numbers scaling badly. And no one disagrees AoV made a mess of the formula.  I also have all my heals levelled and use them all.  

In summary, there isn't really anything to disagree with on your arguments since you're just pointing things out. It's still an issue with numbers though, since if you think about it: if HH or HoTs were not high enough to keep up, spamming heal constantly would be necessary, hence you can't sideline as DPS.

The old Heal never disappeared and I still use it from time to time when the party's tank fails in keeping up threat and as a consequence I'm healing others with HH on cooldown (aka a Chaotic party). In a more decent party, you just never use the Heal because it's not necessary or there's a better alternative. You can choose never to cast heal over time and just spam regular Heals, but who'd want the hassle? However, imagine this: the boss is dealing more damage than what HH, Reno and constant healing can recover, the tank loses a small % of his total every round of cooldowns, and you actually have to put Coluceo into your healing pattern somewhere to sustain the tank. IMO, in that case, even if you have everything levelled, you won't be able to make use of the offense.

Like both you and Telovi implied, AoV made things a bit too easy to manage (except for a few new dungeons which are based off the badly-scaled numbers); hence, the stuff we are talking about now.

Different game different rule. Just because Rogues in other games are like what you have described doesn't mean RO2's Rogue should be the carbon copy. Don't get me wrong, though, I don't want every class to be capable of doing everything. I just want every class to be affordable to perform roles outside their norm with certain degree of rendering. I believe versatile gameplay will make room for harder mechanic challenging instances in the future, unless moving inches away from spot and repeating set of skills is what you called dynamic. 

Then maybe we have a different meaning of "roles"...

If I play a Rogue or Assassin f.e., I expect them always to be stealthy DPS classes. And that doesn't matter which game I play. Likewise if I decided to go for a Shotgun (in Counter Strike or other FPS), I accept that I won't do much in large, open areas.

Yet, usually every game gives you enough room for personal preference. F.e. in Borderlands, every class has exactly ONE active skill... not much to choose from, right? But the game doesn't limit your choices on passives/triggered skills, badass-rewards (kind of statpoints), class-mods, weapons, shields, grenades, elements or artefacts. And they are usually quite unique. But yet, the Assassin will never be able to take up the Healer // Full-Support role in that game (that's the Siren's part).

In Ragnarok 2, your choices are more limited and surely never truly balanced, but you could still go either full VIT or full AGI, you could either try out a PvP honing or a Critical-centric one. For your character, most classes have still some sort of raid (single-target PvE), grind (mass-PvE), duel (single-target PvP) or WoE (mass PvP) builds.

For PvE f.e. you don't need max Hide, Smoke Bomb or Dirty Plan. Rolling Cutter makes not that much sense in single-target builds, whereas Mark of Death is useless in mob fights. 

But since you have too many skillpoints, it's currently possible to be decent in multiple areas and that's what kills variety. And the same happened with the introduction of pets. F.e. even the best Knight couldn't hold the threat against other DPS classes, if he didn't have a decent damage pet on his own. A single Willow Worker and suddenly all it took for a Ranger was to cast that pet every 26sec to be almost as effective as a Healer.

So suddenly all the "should I choose Tension Relax?" build choices were insignificant, because the answer always was: Get yourself a heal pet. "Should I max Berserk?" => "Rather max your mermaid level". Even right now, it might  be more important to get a min cooldown DoT pet than a maxed out AoE.

To make just a quick mind game. Elements are currently more or less a hard choice (unless you pay for multiple weapons) and limits you to certain group of enemies. Now just imagine, if WoE targets would have different elements as well:

Empellium => Firmament

Siege Weapons => Earth

Guardian Leaders => Sinister

Minor Guardians => Destruction // Life

Of course, you would be more limited, but would it increase or decrease variety? IMO, it would increase it. So you see, that restrictions / limitations doesn't mean a necessary evil, but quite the contrary. A class isn't defined only defined by what it does, but also by what it can't do... and one's true character can either be seen either in bad times or by giving him power (too many options).

But to keep to the point:

IMO, the current state has rather eliminated variety than boosting it. Generally spoken, I still prefer well-defined roles for certain classes, but multiple choices within a class. I would really appreciate if it would take more than Reno+HH skills for a Priest to be a valid FS and I wish it would take more than Oratio+Credo do be a DPS class. Cause otherwise, we could eliminate all the other skills and reduce the skillpoints down to 20 or less.

You're right Greven79, we don't share the same opinion regarding role playing in this game. And you manage to come up with better terms than mine regarding the relevant builds at this game current state. Those are more and less what inside my head but I failed to break them down into clearer terms. 

Where's my chainstun nerf?

I disagree that the main reason you want a priest in WoE is for the heal and DoT spam -- heals do not even matter because whenever you're chosen by a group to die, no amount of heals are going to save you through being chain stunned by attacks yourself or you're just going to get 1 shotted by cross impact anyway by any smart sins/rogues since you are priority number 1. The reason to have priest in WoE is the absolutely barbaric ability to chain stun up to 9 people at a time while puttin themselves at no risk at all. I mean come on, at least warrior and BM have to go in there and take a risk for doing it and it only lasts 3s. A single priest will determine a team fight just by spamming aspersio+judex.

The  main problems with priest are pretty obvious:

1. Judex chain stunning (number 1 issue, priests are not beatable in PvP combat if you're stunned for 15s)
2. DoTs doing way too much damage and ignoring defense. 1 tap from a 25m insta cast move (wtf?) and it's going to deal over 60k damage to you, stack oratio on top and not even spamming pots will save you.
3. Priest heals are actually okay, but the problem child is aspersio+HH. It heals for so much that it acts like a colluceo with added HoT benefits.

 

I disagree that the main reason you want a priest in WoE is for the heal and DoT spam -- heals do not even matter because whenever you're chosen by a group to die, no amount of heals are going to save you through being chain stunned by attacks yourself or you're just going to get 1 shotted by cross impact anyway by any smart sins/rogues since you are priority number 1. The reason to have priest in WoE is the absolutely barbaric ability to chain stun up to 9 people at a time while puttin themselves at no risk at all. I mean come on, at least warrior and BM have to go in there and take a risk for doing it and it only lasts 3s. A single priest will determine a team fight just by spamming aspersio+judex.

 

The  main problems with priest are pretty obvious:

1. Judex chain stunning (number 1 issue, priests are not beatable in PvP combat if you're stunned for 15s)
2. DoTs doing way too much damage and ignoring defense. 1 tap from a 25m insta cast move (wtf?) and it's going to deal over 60k damage to you, stack oratio on top and not even spamming pots will save you.
3. Priest heals are actually okay, but the problem child is aspersio+HH. It heals for so much that it acts like a colluceo with added HoT benefits.

I've seen Assassins one-shotting a monk with 90% defense rate out of hide. I also saw Warriors who used Battle Leap one-shotting multiple 'soft' targets at once. I also saw Warriors who were able to stun their targets almost indefinitely by using a high value shock rune. And I saw some clever Crecentias who were able to put multiple targets to sleep or to lower their hit chance to 0% and Sorcerers one/two-shotting opponents as well. And of course, the insane lag combined with the abusal of multiple stackable movement buffs do have a huge impact as well. But still beside all that, most fights were decided by Mortars in combination with choke points, not PvP fights.

A few mortars and any direct confrontation is over before it begins. Sure, some Assassins might then fall into your back and one-shot your priests (which is the end of any assault idea), but that might be totally different, if there won't be any Mortars. And if a team could spread out more, a Judex stun or BT Battle Leap wouldn't be such an issue.

But despite all that, it doesn't mean that the "heals don't even matter" or "are actually okay". IMO, both Renovatio and Cure are by way too powerful as well. If you can't one-shot a Crecentia and it is an "equal" 1:1 situation, he's virtually invulnerable. And the same is true for a Priest. Even if you catch one seperated from the flock, you either kill him instantly or you better ignore him... and that's not because of any Judex stun.

I do still agree with your list and the order though, I just wanted to point out some - imo important side notes.

A simple fix would be to give let Magnus Exorcism be centered around the caster. In that way, you could add stun effect to that skill and the possible 15sec wouldn't matter that much. Or you could replace the stun with a 'Silence' // 'Confuse' effect that keeps the target mobile. Both changes could be implemented within a few hours.

For the inbalanced DoTs.... that's a bit more difficult. Although I already showed an option how to fix them (lowering the defense rate to make the "ignores armor" part less relevant, lowering the damage accordingly), it would require to change quite a few gear and monster stats, but could make "older" content challenging again.