Inquisition

Ada

I wouldn't heal/shield anyone who isn't leading or playing some key role (holding cata, propping totem, etc) tbh.

Beatrice

Lyr said:

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.

Back in the day we used to be able to sap sap sap sap contemplate (without losing equib) - if mana was below 50% - absolve. God that was delicious. 'Course it got nerfed and I haven't fought since -lol-

I too picked priest to be helpful and support but yeah..it's too lineal and reading all the nerfs that were suggested in the classleads made me cringe. GTFO my priest. We want to be overpowered too till you cry in your weeties.
:P

Cooper

Ada said:

I wouldn't heal/shield anyone who isn't leading or playing some key role (holding cata, propping totem, etc) tbh.

It doesn't matter who is targeted or for what reason they were targeted. What matters is delaying/preventing the kill so your allies can kill your enemies better than your enemies can kill you and your allies.

If they spend 10 seconds killing person X instead of 3 seconds, well, that's 7 seconds your team gets to pound on them for free basically.

Tesha

What he is trying to say is do not let Tesha die. 

I like inquisition, it lets my bloodsworn and I do badass things like make people cry in their wheaties. 

Beatrice

GTFO my weeties <--Australian

Lyr

@Cooper, teach me to fight 1v1! Oh wait.

I agree that aura+healing is more helpful than hands. I gave the hands example because of choke goes through shield.

Zeon

Piety, warding, beckon, shield, hands. Priest is fine in groups.

Terra

Eh. I will always compliment people who effectively play support in a group and will always consider them far more valuable than people who just spam damage attacks (even though spamming damage attacks is what some people are supposed to do).

I always play support. I die way more often than I kill. If you're a support class and you are deliberately not doing your job because you want to score a lucky kill you are probably the direct cause of your team losing!

Oh, and priest is an insanely powerful support class, and should be trying to save every person possible in a group fight.

Tvistor

Priest is obviously pretty powerful in groups, but who on earth wants to sink all that money/time into lessons to play nothing but support?

I don't see any problems with priest being somewhat defense-oriented. The problem is that it's pretty much useless elsewhere. A nerf in defense/support but a buff in offense would make it so much more interesting (plus if it's significant enough, we'll get like 50 new Shallam alts, so screw you Ashtan).

I stood in the arena with Lyr a while ago to just try figure out if priests can do anything at all with inquisition. I dutifully sat there while I got sapped/inquisitioned (it wasn't enough). Then we tried sap/inquisition/hellsight and I had like ten afflictions or something obnoxious, but against, it didn't really do anything.

Basically everything is either less efficient than sapsapsapsapsapsap or  marginally more efficient, but it was the most boring class in a fight I have ever seen. Maybe a turn towards instant kills that don't require 50% mana (because in my mind, that's a little like playing a class that kills you after hammering down your health to 50% -- in both cases you're beating on someone without anything in mind other than 'Get this value to X then he dies') and something more like damnation. 

Cooper

If *shallam had a really good monk/artie monk I'd go Priest to support no problem. We don't, though, and I keep hoping that our Priests will start being Priests instead of Smiters.

Terra

Oh, I agree that priest needs better 1v1. I just disagree that it needs something else for group. Some classes are support classes in groups. It's what they do, and it makes group more interesting than everyone just bashing their damage macro.

1v1's another story, and I'd love to see priest have something else to go for there.

Tvistor

Okay, just making sure I was on the same page.

Niks/Lyr seem to do a fairly decent job playing support. Lyr also solo defiled and won a 4 v 1 somehow.

Sena

Aerek said:

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.

Doesn't it reduce all mana healing (both passive and active) by 15%? That's what Traelor said it was based on the Assembly's testing.

Mizik

Niks said:

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.

Granted, it's 3:30 am, and I'm super drunk right now... but man, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Edit 1 min later: You're talking about Sacrifice. Jesus, I don't even. Thanks random alt and Coop. Niks, I can't believe you bothered to type all this dumb - out.

Tvistor

I think he's saying if they heal everything then they lose all their momentum and then you can just get them into that position again.

Although we're really not going to die to a priest at the moment anyway with a few ounces of common sense.

Niks

Right, I was thinking Sacrifice, not Bedevil. Bedevil doesn't work when you're prone, webbed or impaled (I'm guessing not roped either), nor peaced -  so right away it's not that amazing as you're implying. I'd say it's a bit balanced like that, too.

It would seem everyone agrees Inquisition missed its point, it'd be interesting to know if the makers decide to do anything about it. Otherwise people like Akia actually think there was a buff and that's that, even though it missed its mark.

Tvistor

I recall Deridius just locking himself, tumbling to his enemies then bedeviling them

Blujixapug

Tvistor said:

Priest is obviously pretty powerful in groups, but who on earth wants to sink all that money/time into lessons to play nothing but support?

People who like to vicariously frustrate and cause enemies to rage out due to their inability to stick a single affliction on anyone if a priest is in the area, stick damage if a priest is in the room, or hold a target still if a priest is logged into the game.

Actually, playing a priest sounds pretty appealing. (I could throw bananas at people.)

But yeah Achaea is not really set up for "support" classes. Not purely support classes. Some classes can support better than others, some can bash better, or have better utility, or range, or defense, or mobility, but every class is expected to be able to PK 1v1 well.

Ada

Kill the priest first and all your woes are gone Priests don't get many kills during group combat but they die a ton. Once the opponents wise up and target the priest first all your support OP'ness is gone. You get where I'm coming from yet? :o3

P.S.: We need more people consciously looking after our priests instead of taking them for granted.

Nellaundra

Ada said:

Kill the priest first and all your woes are gone Priests don't get many kills during group combat but they die a ton. Once the opponents wise up and target the priest first all your support OP'ness is gone. You get where I'm coming from yet? :o3

P.S.: We need more people consciously looking after our priests instead of taking them for granted.

Ada said:

I wouldn't heal/shield anyone who isn't leading or playing some key role (holding cata, propping totem, etc) tbh.

I think you not being protected has a bit of correlation with this.

Ada

@Nellaundra I was a priest before I switched to magi. And I said I wouldn't protect anyone but key people because it's better to have everybody on the offense. Though I'll admit what a priest should focus on depends largely on the circumstances. Against a very large number of opponents a healing priest wouldn't buy much time but against smaller numbers the priest can significantly reduce casualties.

I just realized we've derailed this thread real good xD

Sabiru

This thread has uncovered most of what has always been wrong with priest (with the exception of the time that Ovid played), and none of it is skillset-related.

Somebody could surely go into exactly why inquisition was a buff to priest, but it's really not worth it when one person appears to only be aware of two of priest's three class skills. Play a little with inquisition on your own time and think about why being able to cause various mana malices to people whose mana you can drop a little but not enough to absolve might be beneficial to the priest class in 1v1 scenarios. When you're done with that, consider the combination of extreme tankiness, warding, piety, cleansing, beckon, ally full-heal, a 50% mana instakill, an eliminate-style instakill, bedevil and a comparatively tame learning curve.

Your class doesn't suck. Amazing support + absolve and judge doesn't suck - it's how I played and enjoyed the game for the past year or so that I was active, and that's without rites and the rest of the amazing shit in devo. Priest is broken in many ways, but none of those make it or its faction at all weak or disadvantaged.

Tvistor

In an attempt to figure out of priest was actually terrible 1 v 1, I looked for as many Ovid combat logs as I could. They were all sapsapsapsap with his opponent having focus on. The only one I found that was different was Arelas eliminating him (Ovid's amnesia pet ate his force commands, so that was pretty funny).

Also played around with inquisition, and in every situation where using inquisition was viable, the priest in question lost so much lead on my mana while off EQ that is was actually pretty stupid. There appears to just be no way I'd ever die to a priest short of falling asleep at the keyboard, or maybe getting proned with my legs broken just before the absolve. (probably not going to happen)

Aerek

Sena said:

Aerek said:

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.

Doesn't it reduce all mana healing (both passive and active) by 15%? That's what Traelor said it was based on the Assembly's testing.

@Sena This is not what I saw when I tested it a month or so ago. The only discernible effect I saw on mana was the mana regen tick being slightly slower than usual. Sip, moss, and Sap mana gain/loss were unaffected. I would love to eat these words, though, so test away.

Sabiru said:

Somebody could surely go into exactly why inquisition was a buff to priest, but it's really not worth it when one person appears to only be aware of two of priest's three class skills. Play a little with inquisition on your own time and think about why being able to cause various mana malices to people whose mana you can drop a little but not enough to absolve might be beneficial to the priest class in 1v1 scenarios.

I respect you as a combatant, and I don't consider myself stupid or biased, but I don't see where you're coming from. Inquisition does not cause "various mana malices" in any of the testing I've done with it; it slows the Moon tattoo rate and makes Focus take twice as much, which does nothing against anyone who doesn't Focus. And no one Focuses against a Priest because you don't need to. It would be different if Priests were like Apostates, where you need Focus to keep up with afflictions and keep from getting locked, but that's just not the case. A few system options to turn off mana-using abilities make you nigh invulnerable to anything a Priest can do to you, and Priests have no way to abuse those concessions.

Sabiru

As a start, there's an uncurable affliction which gives focusable afflictions once every second or so in Devotion - or does inquisition give it automatically at a certain point? I forget/haven't ever tested.

Beyond that, it's definitely possible that inquisition should be tweaked to be more effective. I admit I only skimmed the thread, but I don't think anyone is arguing that. It's just that Priest shouldn't be tossed around as some abysmal class (ala druid, shaman) which should only see buffs if it is to become playable.

Does hellsight and/or spiritwrack give impatience? That, when combined with the stacked goldenseal afflictions from uncurable hellsight and neglecting focus could definitely be one of the more significant mana malices granted by inquisition. Is malices a word? I feel like I might be being daft.

Tvistor

Inquisition doesn't give hellsight, so the priest needs to take more time off sapping to deliver it. It appears to only fire at when your opponent is at 80% mana. If you use it as soon as you're able, it gives (I believe) two L1 limb breaks, slightly slows the rate at which you can restore your mana at and has a fairly lengthy EQ cost (3 seconds, maybe?).

It took approximately eight uninterrupted diadem saps to get me to the second stage of inquisition, wherein you get stunned briefly and 3 breaks. I didn't figure out what the mana level I had to be at was for it to do that, but I'd conservatively guess around 65-70%. I don't believe spiritwrack or chasten can afflict with impatience.

At one point we just had a run where I'd get sapped, inquisitioned, hit with hellsight, then sapped again while the priest tried to get me to absolveable levels. Of course, my focus was turned off and he just couldn't do anything about my afflictions. (I think it was in the range of 10). I could either just hit shield a dozen times or hit evade a dozen times.

I'm also playing from Asia, so the stupidity was hindering my curing really badly -- still really wasn't a problem.

Trying to sap didn't get the afflictions nearly high enough to be a threat, and doing smite/chasten got lots of afflictions but took a year to accomplish anything. (and now that I think back, I hadn't even switched to health priority -- the mace in question was L2).

The only way to get a kill honestly seems to me like just sapping (the inquisition was actually nearly 100% unnecessary -- if you can get someone to 80%, it's not a big stretch to get them to 50% considering sap is unhinderable) and hoping your enemy can't evade, and piety procs a ton.

Sabiru

Low level serpents being inquisition's target audience might be a bad assumption.

Aerek

Hellsight does give some focusable afflictions and is uncurable for 30 seconds if you get to the 60% mana mark, but Inquisition doesn't give it automatically. Priests have to use Hellsight after Inquisition, which has a considerable 4-5 second EQ loss, and then 2 seconds for Hellsight. Even so, Hellsight is not so crippling as to force you to Focus, though, even when it's uncurable. Modern systems will cure all it does to you in a fairly timely manner, and the Priest has no way to capitalize on those extra afflictions the way other classes might, especially if you just lock down on the defensive until it's over. The long EQ time on the Inq/Hellsight combo means you have plenty of time to shield and play it safe, which means the Priest is right back where they started, Sapping away through that shield.

If Inquisition can be tweaked to give Priests a "burst" of mana drain, then that might be all they need to be fun and feasible, but currently the class is abysmal, offensively. It's a momentum class that can barely even sustain its own momentum when against an opponent that does not ignorantly use mana-using abilities. That kind of toothlessness isn't fun at all, and when a class isn't fun, it isn't playable, regardless of how "great" it is on paper or in other scenarios.

Random thought: Instead of limb breaks, Inquisition could make you bleed a metric f- ton and make clotting cost more instead of Focus. Use the same 90/80/70/60% tiers that it currently uses to determine severity, but getting someone down to 70/60% should give them a choice: clot the massive bleeding and risk Absolve, or ignore it and risk getting bled/damaged out. Make torso damage factor in, so Priests can actually use that fantastic limb-break potential of theirs.

Edit @Tvistor: Just for reference, Inquisition has 4 tiers. At 90%, it cripples a limb. At 80%, it cripples 2 limbs. At 70%, it cripples 3 limbs and Hellsight is uncurable for 10 seconds. at 60%, 4 limbs and Hellsight is uncurable for 30 seconds. I assume the Focus penalty and "lessened mana regen" kicks in at 70% as well, and lasts the same duration as the Hellsight penalty. I'm a level 88 human with 4400 mana, and if I turn my focusing and insomnia abilities off and prioritize mana over health, I'm also completely impervious to Sap efforts. It simply doesn't take enough, fast enough, to really get me down, even with Mastery on to get through their damage reduction.

Edit @Sabiru: Neither Spiritwrack or Chasten give impatience. I don't recall if Hellsight does, I'd have to snag a guinea pig in a few days and get back to you.

Tvistor

Possibly. I'd be more than happy to accept it has some use if someone at a higher level tests it and comes to a different conclusion.

Sabiru

Does hellsight give impatience? I'm not in a position to test anymore.