Best Mark/Contract Class

Cynlael

Proving my point :pleased: 

I saw logs of Mizik (or maybe it was Jhui) as Magi, that was terror enough. Pls no Magi-senpai. Just wish people would stop whinging 'bout Occultist.

Atalkez

Cynlael said:

Lol Atalkez. I like you and all, dude. But holy fuck that post is just chock full of ... I'm not going to say that... But you're playing by far the easiest class to beat an Occultist, don't bullshit man, I've seen your spars vs Josoul, and he wipes the floor with Seragorn 1v1.

He lost to Seragorn last night, actually. He's good, never once said he isn't. Seragorn beats nearly everyone he fights, nearly every time. He can fight 2-3 people and Enlighten all 3 of them before dying once. You're kidding yourself if you think this has nothing to do with the class.

Sure, Blademaster can get away in some instances, but Evade balance is still long enough for easy chase. Not to mention the massive cooldown makes it a niche situation at best. Bound only works if you literally refuse to chase. 4 second balance is enough time to get to the Blademaster in nearly all situations.

Is Occultist beatable? Yes. Is it hard to fight? Yes. Is it the worst class to fight? No.

Think what you like, but there is a reason most of the good PKers mentioned Occultist in terms of this discussion!

Any, and I mean any momentum that an Occultist gets on a blademaster, you just bound out or pop meditation balance-free and evade. Your hitting of tentacles is your own fault, you know you can 100% avoid it if you really wanted to.

100% some of the time, not all of the time. There are limits to Bound and Evade, and ways to counter them both.

Let's not forget the pommel/prone/impale that Amranu mentioned. Or phoenix'ing if shit really hits the fan (which you already know removes madness THROUGH hecate). Not like any of your important defences take balance to put back up anyway.

This assumes you've lived longer than 20 seconds and have the shin to Phoenix. 

In the end, it's not just about Blademaster v Occultist. 

Occie is still a super strong class, and played the right way can beat pretty much anyone in a 1v1 setting.

Let's go through this, man. Just for you.
HELP CLASSLIST

<stuff>


Despite all of this, Occultist still lost paralysis (via torc deletion/comboing weaponry with ents). Lols. Good job. See Josoul's post regarding their offensive hindering.

Cynlael

Man, do you even research?

Atalkez said:

He lost to Seragorn last night, actually. He's good, never once said he isn't. Seragorn beats nearly everyone he fights, nearly every time. He can fight 2-3 people and Enlighten all 3 of them before dying once. You're kidding yourself if you think this has nothing to do with the class.

He's 6-2 vs Seragorn (in his favour), hence why I made that comment. Also EQ gem, you could 1v2 1v3 as like... Any EQ-based class, so I'm not sure what your point is there. You should also look at deathsights when he is doing that. The people he does it against aren't super top tier. If you lose 1v2/1v3 to an Occultist, it's certainly -not- because the class is OP, it's because you suck ass at using ANY form of hindering.

Sure, Blademaster can get away in some instances, but Evade balance is still long enough for easy chase. Not to mention the massive cooldown makes it a niche situation at best. Bound only works if you literally refuse to chase. 4 second balance is enough time to get to the Blademaster in nearly all situations.

You seem to be missing the point, in that it gives you more than enough breathing room to reset a fight. You of all people should know this :pleased: 

Is Occultist beatable? Very much so.
Is it hard to fight? Not really. 
Is it the worst class to fight? Of course it's not, see above post.

Think what you like, but there is a reason most of the good PKers mentioned Occultist in terms of this discussion!

Yes. They mentioned it for their ability to jump someone. That's a little different from standing toe-to-toe in a prepared fight, bruh.

<stuff>

100% some of the time, not all of the time. There are limits to Bound and Evade, and ways to counter them both.
See previous point about breathing room.

<stuff>

This assumes you've lived longer than 20 seconds and have the shin to Phoenix. 
Super hard to do as a BM. Pommel->Impale off of.. I don't know.. ANYTHING they do. 


Occie is still a super strong class, and played the right way can beat pretty much anyone in a 1v1
setting.
Oddly enough, so can... Hmm... EVERY other class. Funny that. Better slap Occultist with the nerf stick some more.

Anyway, 4am. I'm outties to sleep. Cya nerd.

Atalkez

I never called for nerfs, by the way. 

I simply said the class is still strong and not "laughably easy to survive againt", which is what you seem to believe.

Amranu

It should be laughably easy to survive against as BM :P

Aerek

I'm not an expert on Occultist, Cynlael, but I don't think you're very accurate in the picture you're painting of them. You can argue there are "tricks" to cure and counter Occultist, but they're pretty esoteric, as I haven't figured all of them out myself, and I consider myself a decent combatant. Even so, Occultists have one of the fastest time-to-kill offenses around, and that makes it hard for other classes to fight them even if they cure well, because they're having to run or go defensive every 10-12 seconds, which stops their own offense. In a lot of my fights with Occies, it's just not fun to fight them, even if I think I can win, because I spend most of my time running from Cadmus.

Just to point out a few fallacies, Slime doesn't extend Tree balance to truly stupid lengths anymore, but it's still strong; don't dismiss it. Gremlin is not balanceless, but it's faster than any other shieldbreaker around, especially when you're at the point that you need to shield. Tentacles are not as "good" as Piety on defense, but that doesn't matter when we're talking about how hard it is to escape Occultist with Tentacles/Tower Tarot. Shaman Projection ignores them, but shows you where they go and that's a 4-sec recovery, so you just have to follow/mountjump and tentacles come with you. Knights can't "stick" paralysis on Occultist like Apostate/Bard can, they can only spam it, and it's not as easy as you make it sound because we usually end up with lethargy/clumsiness, which brings us up to a 2.3 DSL/Combo or makes us miss entirely. BM is pretty well-equipped to fight Occultist, true, but I'd point out that BM is also a class that's almost OP currently, and the Occultist can kill the BM much faster than the BM can kill the Occultist, so that's saying something.

Long story short, you're not wrong, but I don't feel you understand nearly as much as you think you do. You exhibit a good understanding of actual skill mechanics, and basic understanding of class balance, but it pretty much ends there. You talk tough and toss out half-right or generic advice like you some kind of pro, but I'm pretty sure I've fought you on at least two of your characters, and you've never been good enough to justify the ego you throw around.

Jovolo

This is why you need to do what I do Cynlael, just don't play the game while exclaiming grand knowledge in combat and no one can actually cite examples of you being bad. Kappa

Amranu

My personal opinion is that they wreck people with curing not properly setup to deal with them, but otherwise they need some pretty decent luck to get anywhere if someone decides to play remotely defensive.

Seth

Just throwing this out. Sylvan doesn't have BB anymore. That is all.

Tael

Amranu said:

My personal opinion is that they wreck people with curing not properly setup to deal with them, but otherwise they need some pretty decent luck to get anywhere if someone decides to play remotely defensive.

I don't really have a horse in this race or an understanding of the relative strength of occultist, and I'm not saying you're one of the people suggesting this, but I just want to point out that, while a lot of people are tempted to suggest that something being relatively easy to counter in higher-tier combat indicates that it's balanced despite it frequently stomping all over lower-tier combatants, that's actually the worst kind of balance situation.

It means that the rewards for fighting easy opponents are too great and the rewards for fighting tough opponents are too small.

A noobstomp class that is easily countered at higher tiers doesn't indicate balance, it indicates a balance problem.

Amranu

I don't think it's easily countered at the top tier, it's counterable with decent luck, curing and good timing, but the same is and/or should be true of most classes.

Pretty much every class has noobstomping ability. Maybe not as quickly as Occie, but it's there. Ask anyone with less than 4k mana how they do against Blademaster for instance.

Cynlael

@Seth: Yeah forgot that, kinda sad since it's one of my most played classes, and have at least played it since its 'rework'

@Aerek; last time I fought you was about two-three years ago, man, and it was only as one char that I was barely even dual trans'd on, let alone anything else (rip college money). Certainly not posting on forums about, either. So either you're mis-remembering, or someone's lying to you 'bout my chars..  
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@Daeir: TTK, Alchemist and Sentinel both have faster which also provide better offensive hindering in the process. Even moreso, if RNG is in their favour. I'm pretty sure Apo can now as well, with their faster deadeyes speed. (Judging from watching people vs Medi), if you're going purely by how long it takes for them to be in kill range. I'm 90% sure Bard's up there to, and god forbid they have an arti rapier.

Just did solid rounds of testing with Josoul... -Super- RNG in his favour, with me standing there taking everything (no shielding, running, hindering of any sort, or passive curing) ... Quickest madness was at 14-15s (not something to judge by).
The more realistic madness were between 19-23 (still just standing there). Hindering him/using passive cures were easily throwing that to over 30s, which is fair enough. 
          (Will gladly provide logs, when Ascendants tournament finishes as proof if necessary)

Sentinel/Alch/Bard/Apo can reach theirs in less time (or at the very LEAST breaking even). When hindered appropriately, Occultist easily lag behind those four. All hinder offensively and chase better than them, too. Occultist 100% broken though. 

Honestly, if anything, I'd say Occultists are great at punishing bad mistakes, but that doesn't make them super OP. They've been watered down to having one or two tricks that you can pull, anything else you can survive against well enough with proper defensive playing.

ps. Occ doesn't have dizziness, @Daeir. Got changed to vertigo.  (just figured I'd point that out)
Might have missed something, sorry. It's now 6am and I'm beyond exhausted.

pps. add 4s onto that for the enlighten to go off. Another 4s where you have a chance to run, and likely screw up their hecate. (they'll ideally only have about 3-4 more seconds after getting balance back from madness, where it'll still be incurable)

Jinsun

So as someone who has been tracking occultist's ups and downs for about 3 years now, I'll say there are good points on both sides. I do think @Cynlael has the winning points here (as much as it pains me to agree with him). Occultist is really lame in one sense in that winning relies mostly on RNG and your opponent not having a clue how to counter. In fairness, most classes are meant to capitalize on curing choices and possible mistakes but occie has this sort of plateau learning curve where you can lolsmash midbies all day but fighting anyone who is close to top tier is difficult. @Josoul and I often refer to occie offense as a glass cannon. It's based heavily on luck (having no control on bloodleech, humbug, deviled cards, unnamable, Cadmus affs). It is incredibly potent when things go right, but is horribly frustrating when things go wrong. The difference between a fight where a triple unnamable, double moon procs with stupidity and confusion forcing the person to do secrets, and a fight when unnamable procs one aff and moon flings a lust that they just reject is night and day. One fight, the person gets hit with 6 affs in one balance (pretty rare/lucky ) and feels like they got hit by a train. The other they get 2 mental affs and are still in relatively good shape and will probably shield are run. The hardcore reliance on RNG is just as annoying for the occultist as it is for anyone else. I'd love to see more control and diversity in our offense than the current state of lol brute forcing RNG. 

The mobility of tentacles is cool but does not really compare to the stopping power of piety which blocks flight and a few other things. And it's nowhere near as good as homonculus for 1v1 escape chance. scaling on afflictions for a para heavy class is just blatantly overkill. 


Death tarot is relatively useless as a kill option. Also most occultists have 4k health because it requires so much int to be effective.

They do have really great utility and escape options but constant nerfing has made it a rather stale and predictable class. It could really use some love in offensive versatility. I quite agree that it doesn't need more nerfs. The average person struggles to figure out anything about occie combat and there's 3-4 that actually fight as an occie. If you're getting lolstomped by occies, you're doing a few things wrong:

diagnosing on unnamable. You have to. If not, you're fucked and we know it.

abusing active cures. The amount of people who don't use their class cure or dragon heal when I jump them is pretty staggering.

turtle when you see certain things. If you see unnamable, hinder, shield or prepare for a mental afflictions onslaught. If see see Cadmus or Hecate it is time to run, you're very close to being enlightened. If you see madness run or accept the inevitable. 

All in all, the class has significant problems, but I think it stems more from a need for simple creative fixes and rather than being overpowered like it was.

Talysin

Sylvan

Tahquil

Sylvan! ( Actually I would like to see a blow by blow timeline of Sylvan vs Occie.) A few of the 'escape' tactics don't seem like they would be any use but I need a few hours until I can swap back and test out the time between pan ticks.

Cynlael

Occultist will win that 9/10 times. Sylvan won't be able to stay in room long enough to get energy to do anything.

Talysin

Untrue ^

Mizik

Sylvan out pressures Occultist. Same pace, better affs. Then the nuke. 

Cynlael

@Josoul / @Seragorn vs @Talysin, gogo.

Caladbolg

Personally I feel Occultist is to powerful when automated correctly the class feels like it's made to have a high skill cap which can be reached by automation perhaps far to easily.

Cynlael

You could say the same about every aff class.

Doesn't really have a high skill cap though. It's just annoying as shit.

Caladbolg

Cynlael said:

You could say the same about every aff class.

Doesn't really have a high skill cap though. It's just annoying as shit.

Actually you can't, I've played alot of classes affliction and normal. Normal affliction classes have you adapting what afflictions your using based on what your opponents curing to get that lock.

Occultist however is just stacking certain kinds of afflictions to get a kill, and the ones coming from your ents is pretty much entirely rng from what I could tell. Now as an occultist your over here trying to predict what they cured + what random affliction your ent just gave into a count of omg can I camdus yet? When your automated it completely  does all the tracking for you. and it's alot easier to track physical affliction count and mental count than it is 3 kelp afflictions and they ate kelp.

Running aside because you can basically run away from just about any affliction class at the right time and be fine.

Except the fact that running away from an occultist every 5 seconds so you doesn't die completely resets pretty much everything except limb preping. (and a few other things like hypnosis)

Cynlael

You can automate any affliction class. Regardless of what you want to think. It's not hard to predict what they cure when they're not in the room. Running away only guarantees your safety if they have zero idea of how to chase, which plenty of 'top' fighters do perfectly fine, and can keep their pressure up.