Bedevil. Is it a liability to have now?

Linus

I've considered many of the posts in this and have come to the following conclusion. If passive bedevil can be forced consistently, even with care and healing, it seems I am locked fairly often by a variety of classes, from bard, serpent, apostate. This does leave me with the benefit of passive affliction reflecting, however, it cuts off my healing. Compare this to the mirror class, apostate. They have no healing but have better access to controlled afflictions which can actually help lead to a kill. As priest stands now, if the opponent is getting overwhelmed, they can stop afflicting for a bit and the priest has no way to lock or even punish someone being over afflicted aside from spiritlash. However, all of these classes are so maneuverable that priests cannot pin them down in a room long enough to punish any such mistake.

Priest no longer has the healing ability needed to survive against affliction classes, which as many have pointed out, it's good that affliction classes now have a way to fight priests when before they were just screwed (though less so with the recent major nerfs to healing by adding balance to healing). However, I posit that before it was stand still between priest and these classes as affliction always comes with maneuverability. Now, the balance is squarely in the favor of affliction classes as priest is not able to capitalize on mistakes of the opponent in over afflicting themselves, and furthermore they cannot prevent evade/somersault in any meaningful way without losing all momentum. 

This is a problem for a class that hardly has the ability to prep, and relies almost entirely on mana or health momentum to kill. Not only can they easily escape to kill that momentum, but attempts to prevent said escapes typically equally do the same.

In Conclusion, Bedevil as it stands now is a liability as it changes what was a stalemate matchup into one heavily favoring the affliction classes and it does not add significantly to the offense as a priest as they lack the ability to capitalize upon what would otherwise be an interesting tradeoff ability.

Mishgul

hm apostates can't force bedevil. How would they prevent you from healing that one affliction (asthma or impatience) that allows you to instantly follow up with 2-3 cures preventing a lock from happening? I can't imagine the situation hypothetically. 

Jarrod

Priests have two separate forms of passive healing (that don't overlap ofc) they can easily maintain all the time in a fight. This is on par with most other classes, and stronger than some (Like Occultist with no passive curing) on the defensive side. With the Healing skillset they are effectively affliction immune if played correctly, so it needs a way to be disabled.

You are not a bad curing class when Bedevil is forced, you're an -average- healing class. It just feels bad because Priest is so far ahead of every other class in terms of curing with the Healing skillset.

Linus

I am aware that bedevil cannot be forced by apostate, I have been using bedevil against various classes to gauge how much of an issue it is against different affliction classes.  This was one of three that stood out to be particularly strong against me with bedevil used.

It is stronger than Occultist, but Occultist has the offensive ability to make up for that. Priest does not with having a poor level offense at best. This is typically made up for by the amount of defense the class has. However, when healing is taken out of the equation this does not create a balanced class, but rather a poor offense with average defense.

Tesha

Bedevil (defense) no longer takes eq/bal, so that helps, but I think what Linus means is we can't have a difficult time hindering. So while Occultist has no passive curing, they do have hangedman and a much easier time sticking hindering affs. Most classes have some form of hindering when needed, but Priest lacks that. It's why @Mizik said he doesn't think Priest stands a mechanical chance against Occultist at the moment, and I very much agree with him. Priest needs to build momentum to shine, and against classes that can stall that momentum away by hindering etc., priest can't do that.

Mizik

Magician is the reason - defeats the Absolve design. Priest needs a way to block it. It's their version Fitness vs locks pre-weariness for Absolve, and an oversight in Priest balancing. We'll get it.

I snagged Torc to combat Hangedman. Lose only one round, rather than two. 

Mizik

Bedevil shouldn't cure.

Terra

Priest has essentially been put down to the same level as a number of other classes. Other classes can hinder. Priest can attack -while hindered-. The end result is offense vs offense, who dies first, which is basically what any momentum matchup ends with.

You've killed me several times, @Linus, so I'm not sure why you think you have no offense. Force bedevil means nothing against apostate since apostate can't force. Bards use mana with their offense and can't stop sap, so just pressure them back-it's very difficult to keep up an offense against you while being mana pressured, and if a bard stops their offense, they lose everything, just like you do. If they somersault, they lose everything. And you only need to walk out of the room (no somersault required) to reset a bard's offense. Thoth's fang serpent is basically unstoppable right now, but that's for all non-prep classes, not just priest. Double passive healing should put priest above the others there too.

Priest offense has been substantially buffed and is not by any means sub-par. Its defense is still better than average, just worse than "absolute immunity." Maybe there are problems vs Magician, but that wasn't even one of the problems listed.

Piety is one of the best abilities in the game to stop running. Even against evade/somersault, you can piety multiple rooms in a row, making it take much longer to get away for long enough to heal up. You can probably also devotion force tumble cancel/disrupt at the same time? (to keep momentum while stopping somersault).

Tesha

Mizik said:

Magician is the reason - defeats the Absolve design. Priest needs a way to block it. It's their version Fitness vs locks pre-weariness for Absolve, and an oversight in Priest balancing. We'll get it.

I snagged Torc to combat Hangedman. Lose only one round, rather than two. 

We should get some logs to pick apart sometime, I think there's more to it than magician.

Mizik

Sure. All I know is that none of the new stuff does anything and people only die to 'dor sap'.

Logs would help.