Inquisition

Niks

Does anyone have the original classlead reports for Inqusition, or any sort of background information that went into developing this ability?

I'm trying to work out what the people who made the skill were thinking - what's the logic behind it and how is it supposed to work for scoring a kill, and how was it an improvement over the earlier kill method priests had.

Thanks

Iocun

Inquisition itself is nice enough, but priests need a way to capitalize on an opponent having mental afflictions to make it useful. Currently it's just too easy to simply not focus against a priest.

Velyse

Disclaimer: I am a noob and so I probably don't know what I'm talking about.

I'm still unsure about inquisition. It seems like the cost for the yield is out of balance. 5 second EQ plus 61-70% opponent mana for full effect seems a little steep, considering that you can sip/moss every 5/6 seconds respectively. That's negating a pretty huge portion of your momentum for small returns, right when your momentum is the most important. Hellsight is another few seconds (I haven't fought in a month, and I can't remember how long off hand -- 4 seconds?) which means that by the time you get back to offense they're probably at or near full mana. If it paid off, it would be excellent, but the penalties to sipping, moss, etc. don't seem that dramatic. It helps build mental afflictions and breaks limbs pretty dramatically, but we don't have any way of capitalizing on either, and so it feels more like a great ability for a completely different class. I haven't noticed much difference mid-fight between using inquisition and not using it. Maybe it counters something in particular and I'm simply not experienced enough to use it properly, but I haven't a clue so far.

Vaehl

Hellsight not that slow, but yeah, a sap based on mental affs would be nice, but won't stop priest from being really boring. I don't want to see any offense buffs before any defense nerfs, though.

Iocun

No, you are right. In its current implementation it doesn't help priests very much.

Vaehl said:

Hellsight not that slow, but yeah, a sap based on mental affs would be nice, but won't stop priest from being really boring. I don't want to see any offense buffs before any defense nerfs, though.

Buffing offence first might make priests cry out less when the defence nerfs come in though. Optimally, both should happen at the same time though.

Mizik

You guys ever read classleads? Look for any in there by Tanris. We spent an hour one night fixing Priest.

Iocun

We do, but we might as well chat ahead while we wait!

Manifest

What was the earlier kill method you mentioned?

Akia

Niks said:

Does anyone have the original classlead reports for Inqusition, or any sort of background information that went into developing this ability?

I'm trying to work out what the people who made the skill were thinking - what's the logic behind it and how is it supposed to work for scoring a kill, and how was it an improvement over the earlier kill method priests had.

Thanks

Wut, as opposed to what?  Smiting to death?  Only a Shallamese would complain about a buff from 0 not being good enough.  lol'd

Sabiru

Classlead #36 Skill: Spirituality Ability: Inquisition

Problem: No real way to gain momentum against people who won't die to sap/smite on loop.

Solution: prone shield for inquisition, no backsies?

Decision: Approved. No backsies.

Niks

So nobody has the original Inquisition classlead?

I didn't think it was such a difficult request necessitating Ashtan RL RPers to shit all over the thread, tbh.

Kellonius

Niks said:

Does anyone have the original classlead reports for Inqusition, or any sort of background information that went into developing this ability?

I'm trying to work out what the people who made the skill were thinking - what's the logic behind it and how is it supposed to work for scoring a kill, and how was it an improvement over the earlier kill method priests had.

Thanks

There was no original Inquisition Classlead. Sarapis made a post about new devotion abilities, and that was when Inquisition and Damnation were introduced. There was no talk about it in the ACC either, it just happened one day. 

My theory is this: Priest and Paladins are supposed to fight together, and the combination of bloodsworn, inquisition and damnation make that a viable possibility. Priests can mutilate limbs very easily and effective, and inquisition makes hell-sight uncureable. What are some of the key elements of damnation? Your target needs to have a break on the head and hell-sight active. At first, damnation required a level 2 break on the head, but it was determined that the skill was too hard(1vs1) to use with that.

Kellonius

Mizik said:

You guys ever read classleads? Look for any in there by Tanris. We spent an hour one night fixing Priest.

I read those priest classleads and did not enjoy some of them. You guys wanted to decrease how much mana was taken during sap or something for one of them. Tanris said that with quick-witted he could outpace the mana drain on "anyone" with just sap. That in itself, is incorrect. I have quick-witted AND a diadem and I cannot outpace anyone by just sapping. Even with demons on and spiritwrack its difficult to get a reasonable mana drain going on a lot of people. There were a ton of nerfs in there with your "fixes", and I think it would have left Priest in a worse state than it was already.

Edit: Quick edit before I get jumped on. There were a lot of good ideas in there too, but I dont think the good ideas would have outweighed all of the potential nerfs, and in the end it would have made it harder for Priests.

Aktillum

Kellonius said:

My theory is this: Priest are gimpy based on ooc concepts of good eternally struggling against the often superior firepower of the bad team, but survives in the end through teamwork and being righteous of heart.

Hollywood ruined Priest.

Iocun

Of course there were a ton of nerfs in there as well. Priests need a lot of nerfs in certain areas. They just also need some severe offensive buffs.

I never quite like the stance "the nerfs to my class must be balanced against the buffs to my class". That sort of attitude leads to certain issues never being fixed, because people can't stand a period of their class being underpowered or another class being overpowered for a while, so they just resist change. If we want to truly move the Achaean combat environment to the better, we have to live with such periods of under- or overpoweredness and accept that they are merely intermediary states until other flaws are fixed as well.

Kellonius

Iocun said:

Of course there were a ton of nerfs in there as well. Priests need a lot of nerfs in certain areas. They just also need some severe offensive buffs.

I agree that they need nerfs, but the nerfs suggested were not the right nerfs. Right now having one or two overpowered things is all Priests have to stay alive, since killing anyone who is actually good is pretty much out of the question 1vs1. Why nerf a skill like sap, which isn't widely considered OP or a problem? Not even that its not widely considered OP, just the fact that the claim that was made against it is not even true?

Aktillum

Submitted by: Tanris

Priest has solid limb prep support, but no real way to make use of it. Given that shielding is a problem 

for priests, a way to set off breaks in such a way as to hinder shielding when attempting to seal an 

absolve would open up some avenues for dealing with one of the largest considerations when trying to adjust 

priest--a way to get around the person simply holding down their shield alias until mana rises back to an 

acceptable level.

Submitted by: Tanris

Sap is currently an easy win button against anyone, regardless of artifacts/level/race, who does not have 

an active mana healing ability along the lines of magician/sapience/etc along with an active mana draining 

offense. This is extremely compounded by quick-witted and diadems, coupled with demons. The primary issue 

here is that sap is 100% unhinderable; a knight or sentinel could have a priest quadbroken, prone, with a 

concussion, impaled and paralysed, and the priest is under no obligation to stop sapping or absolve. This 

makes any other form of offense on the priests part rather pointless, as all other forms of offense are 

hinderable; so why bother. (A level 3 mana sip ring can make not having active mana healing viable as well, 

but this should hardly be considered a reasonable expectation.)

wat?

Niks

Kellonius said:

Niks said:

Does anyone have the original classlead reports for Inqusition, or any sort of background information that went into developing this ability?

I'm trying to work out what the people who made the skill were thinking - what's the logic behind it and how is it supposed to work for scoring a kill, and how was it an improvement over the earlier kill method priests had.

Thanks

There was no original Inquisition Classlead. Sarapis made a post about new devotion abilities, and that was when Inquisition and Damnation were introduced. There was no talk about it in the ACC either, it just happened one day. 

Thanks.

Mizik

Kellonius said:

Mizik said:

You guys ever read classleads? Look for any in there by Tanris. We spent an hour one night fixing Priest.

I read those priest classleads and did not enjoy some of them. You guys wanted to decrease how much mana was taken during sap or something for one of them. Tanris said that with quick-witted he could outpace the mana drain on "anyone" with just sap. That in itself, is incorrect. I have quick-witted AND a diadem and I cannot outpace anyone by just sapping. Even with demons on and spiritwrack its difficult to get a reasonable mana drain going on a lot of people. There were a ton of nerfs in there with your "fixes", and I think it would have left Priest in a worse state than it was already.

Edit: Quick edit before I get jumped on. There were a lot of good ideas in there too, but I dont think the good ideas would have outweighed all of the potential nerfs, and in the end it would have made it harder for Priests.

Nerf or balancing?

There's nothing balanced about all aff insta heal. << I can't believe I actually have to type that sentence.

Nevermind double passive healing.

Agree that Sap can stay the same. Though, I do think its inability to be hindered is silly in some cases: 

Example: Mizik Sentinel vs Micositu Priest

Micositu is on the ground with all four limbs mangled and a concussion, Mizik just pounding away. We're sitting in Demons, Piety, etc. Micositu's thrashed on ground, spamming unstoppable Sap. Sap outpaces mana sip, Absolve also unstoppable. Forces the shield.

So, Sap unstoppable? Ok. Absolve? F that. Standing or bust! 5x Mangled, bro.

Aerek

I went dormant just after Inq came out, and went Paladin on my return, so I admit I haven't spent a huge amount of time working out what Inquisition is supposed to do. That said, yeah, out of all of Inq's effects, a lot of them seem to be inconsequential when actually fighting a Priest. And given the fact that to get the full effect, you have to get someone down to 60% max mana, I just couldn't find a justification for using it. If you can get someone down to 60%, in the first place, better to keep sapping and kill them instead of Inq'ing and having to start over on the Sap side.

I'm not sure what purpose the 4 crippled limbs serve, since they're healed long before the Priest has EQ back, and I don't really know of a way for Priests to capitalize on that, anyway. The only reason I can think of for the limb breaks is to fool systems into Restoring for the huge EQ loss, which could give you a Judgement window, but the huge EQ loss on Inq doesn't really allow that, either. Making Hellsight uncurable is good for Paladins, but I don't see how it helps the Priest, himself. Especially with modern systems, even uncurable Hellsight is just annoying, because you can still just cure what it gives you until the Inq effect ends, and the Priest doesn't have anything to really take advantage of it. Making Focus cost twice as much is nice, but it's too easy just to not use Focus. When I was a Priest, the world was already made up of two kinds of people:  those who Focused, and those who didn't. I could already kill those who did, and making Focus cost more doesn't help against those who don't. The last effect says that mental regeneration is slowed, and after testing thoroughly, it looks like it does just slow down the Moon tattoo tick a bit. It's a nice thought, but it's so small of an advantage, I'm not sure why it was included.

When the ability came out, I thought that the last effect would make you sip for less mana, or make Sap take more. If that was the case and the effect was strong enough, Inquisition might see more use. If you could get someone down to 70% or so, Inq might give you a "burst" effect on mana drain to finish the job, which might be good enough to get those opponents that manage their mana well.

Manix

In my humble and inexperienced opinion, I honestly believe there should be less of an emphasis on buffing a sap>absolution kill and instead increasing the variety of options a Priest has to utilise in their offence. In other words, we could not attempt to buff their incredibly linear offence but instead seek ways of making them more interesting to fight as and against? I do agree that they need large defensive nerfs, and the Priests that would be on the harsh end of these nerfs need to understand that the nerfs are making way for the offensive buffs! 

Just my two cents.

Antonius

@Manix: The big problem with nerfs making way for buffs in other areas is they don't tend to come at the same time, and you end up sitting in a poor state for a year or more while you wait for them to come. Taking away the few advantages Priests have, and giving them nothing in return, is likely just going to see a lot of people move away from the class; then the changes become less of a priority, and the situation gets worse.

Priests need defensive nerfs and offensive buffs, but more importantly they need to get them at the same time - anything else really isn't a suitable option.

Cooper

Am I the only one that doesn't see a problem with Priests not having a good reliable way to kill people when their class is more focused on being defensive, surviving, and keeping others alive?

I cringe every time I see a Priest smite or sap in a group fight when I know their time is better spent healing, handsing and shielding people.

Niks

Mizik said:

There's nothing balanced about all aff insta heal. << I can't believe I actually have to type that sentence.

I'll contest you on that point, given how you see it as a completely unbalanced thing with nothing to negate it.

All aff insta heal = no more sap, no more absolve. Once you force the priest to do that, you will not die to them. If they can't afford trans tattoos, it also means they can't shield (remember that for a priest, a hammer replaces a shield, and you rely on your angel for a shield), and they have no spritwrack. They become pretty useless with on chances of winning the fight on anything they setup. No double-healing. 

I don't think it's that horribly bad as you're making it out to be. Plus if you managed to get them to that point, you're likely to do it again, far easier this time as well. Think of it as a worse soulcage/mog.

I don't consider it that horribly unbalanced as you're making it out to be.

Velyse

Cooper said:

Am I the only one that doesn't see a problem with Priests not having a good reliable way to kill people when their class is more focused on being defensive, surviving, and keeping others alive?

I cringe every time I see a Priest smite or sap in a group fight when I know their time is better spent healing, handsing and shielding people.

If you got XP for healing, shielding, and generally keeping others alive then no you wouldn't be the only one. Unfortunately the game doesn't cater to that play style particularly well, and it certainly doesn't reward it, so yes you probably are!

@Niks I think he meant Bedevil. Healing, in general, is pretty overpowered. Combined with angel care and healing rites, you pretty much can't get locked. I'm a bottom-tier quasi-combatant who is 1/3 of the way into Healing, lesson wise, and Iocun still can't lock me. It's just that strong.

Lyr

Cooper said:

Am I the only one that doesn't see a problem with Priests not having a good reliable way to kill people when their class is more focused on being defensive, surviving, and keeping others alive?

I cringe every time I see a Priest smite or sap in a group fight when I know their time is better spent healing, handsing and shielding people.

Just lol.

ITT: Priest should be happy it can be a support class with no offensive capability. Help me get kills, despite priests being the first ones targeted for said healing capabilities, and screw you.

Cooper

@niks - I think he meant healing through the healing skillset, not killing your angel

@Velyse - I agree that group fighting experience needs to be looked at. It is not a problem that only Priests have, though. Also note that I did not say anything about not using absolve - Priests don't use that nearly as much either.

@Lyr - Priests have offensive cability. Rites, passive angel stuff, absolve. You can be pissed at me all you want, but if the reason you are raiding/defending is to get experience from kills, well, that isn't a good reason. You should want everyone on your team to live and do well, and not just gain xp yourself. If it's that important to you, I'll let you kill me twice every time you save me from dying in a fight, and I'm not even kidding.

Ada

No wonder all the dragon/priests prefer dragonform

I liked being a priest but the linear offense got kinda boring.

Lyr

Of course it's not about getting textp. In groups, priests shine but still come up a little short. Not much, just a little. Getting ganked 1v1 versus Sohl (and others), however, have made me frustrated when people say "priests should be happy with what they have". Our defensive capabilities are useless in groups because people are spamming the bejeezus out of their damage abilities. Two other devotionists and I were handsing someone (80+) during a choke rangefest and he still died in seconds. In the scenario the priest is not targeted first (sometimes second, after the leader), we can hands once or twice and still not save someone, or contribute to a person's death and maybe feel some sort of accomplishment. It's generally the case (in my experience) that healers are ignored when they're doing their job and are berated when they don't do something. That gets really old after a while.

That said, the reason I picked priest is to be helpful and play a mostly support role. But I'd like to be able to have some method of killing people that works if I play well enough.

Velyse

Lyr said:

 It's generally the case (in my experience) that healers are ignored when they're doing their job and are berated when they don't do something. That gets really old after a while.

That said, the reason I picked priest is to be helpful and play a mostly support role. But I'd like to be able to have some method of killing people that works if I play well enough.

I think that people in Cyrene have been pretty good about patting me on the head when I do things right, and politely telling me that I've messed up when I do things wrong. Maybe Shallam has so many priests that they feel it's okay to treat them like rubbish, while in Cyrene so few are interested in combat that they're worried about scaring us off? Or maybe my character is just too adorable to yell at  

I definitely agree with the second part, though! I wish there were more active-support roles in the game. The only ones I can think of, beside priest, are occultist/jester because of tarot. Jesters aren't exactly considered the most engaging class in group combat, either.

Cooper

I'm happy to train -any- Priest on *shallam's side in how to properly do things.

If someone dies to kai chokes in range, they are just doing it wrong. Have you ever seen how long I survive in range-raids when I have one or more people healing me? I'm sure Sohl and friends can attest to how much of a pain in the ass I can be in range.

Anyway, I also think that you feel like you're the target a bit more than you are. I haven't been around much (sorry about that, RL things to attend to a lot currently). When you are targeted though we should have another Priest ready to step in and help you.

Also, hands isn't always the best option. Most of the time people die in raid defense in melee it's due to bbt/bite while being hanged man or aeon locked. In that situation, a quick heal of asthma and an angel aura is much preferable to hands. When someone is prone and ready to be killed, the dragons and monks don't expect the person to be shielded. They will hit the shield, you will save their life while they writhe out or cure aeon and then stand up and be fine.

But for real, if you want to ask me situations on 'what should I do when', I'm always happy to answer. I might not be logging into Achaea as much, but I always check and reply to messages.