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Wiolo

Priest Information/Suggestions

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Now, when the Priest Overhaul was released I felt a tad confused. My reaction was something like. "Oh my, there is still a lot that needs touching up." So I will start with deity's. And then spells on my thoughts and concerns.
This post will also give you an in depth look on what deity's you should be picking and what suits you best. Because I know there is a lot of TLDR material here so I put the deity's and various concerns in bullets.
 

  • Vynora: This one has always been a good one. In terms of enchanting, yeah, she is one of the best. CoC+WoA is a solid combo, with AoSP and Nimbleness plus MIndstealer and Frostbrand make her a fantastic tool and weapon enchanter and a decent armour enchanter. With a pendy cast too! In terms of utility Mend and Wisdom of Vynora are lovely casts. And in terms of passives, a 10% skillgain bonus is EVERYTHING is gigantic. Oh, and the +2 defensive CR on pavement/sea isn't worth mentioning. Lol, really great deity though, always has been. And Excel is a nice defensive bonus spell for when you want to be a tanky boi/girl. She has a fantastic focal point as an enchanter.
     
  • Magranon: As a caster he is poor, no tool casts, 1 armour cast, and 1 weapon cast, but good for pendulums. As a fighter, yeah, he's the best, Vynora is a better mage on average in PvP due to reduced casting timers for the heavy damage spell, but Maggie really is the best in combat. A 15% damage bonus and a 25% increased in combat skill gain and +2 offensive CR are three good compliments, and as a utility he ain't bad having Disintegrate and Strongwall. Personally it just isn't enough to draw me to him though, priests need good spells to go on and make good money, and he just doesn't have good enchants. Only a deity you'd see on PvP I'd imagine. Frantic charge is fantastic now that it has a 10% increase attack speed and focused will is nice during down times. Just all around the best Melee combat deity in the game, giving Magranon a pronounced focal point. Which is good.
     
  • Libila: As an enchanter, she is lovely. Both armour enchants so she is great, Bloodthrist, RT, ED, so great for weapons, and Blessings of the Dark, so she is good for your best tools, not for skillers, which is a good balance versus Vynora, in combat she is good, not great, but good, as a mage she is the best deity there is, but there is one problem, her fast cast spell Rotting gut is weak for some reason, but despite that Worm brains (because it always hits the head) is the best heavy damage spell there is, dealing the highest amount of  Worm brains damage and having a cast timer of 15 seconds, just like hypothermia, and having the favor cost of 40, plus pain rain, and Scorn, which can make for some fantastic/sometimes sh*** healing. She can have up to +5 offensive CR with Truehit and her passive, which in almost all of my tests doesn't beat Magranon's 15% damage bonus, but in PvP she can be better in certain situations, but more often than not, not. In terms of passives she has absolutely no skillgain bonuses which is a huge turn off, and a stamina bonus which is useless on freedom. The +2 offensive CR is kind of nothing. But her place in PvE combat is niche. And bad. But as I said, good enchanter, and that alone can be a great reason to pick her. But the zero skillgain bonus hurts. She has a great focal point as an enchanter, and mage. And Alchemy Sacrifice is huge.
     
  • Fo: Now this one is a tad confusing to me, especially in comparison to other deity's. And I will get in to why but first... As a caster deity he is poor. Only sporting 2 weapon enchants, no armour enchants, and nothing for tools But to be fair his weapon enchants are rare, which is nice. Life Transfer and Venom are very unique and do only belong to Smeagain/Nathan. Here comes the complaints... He is decent utility in the act that he has Genesis... but Nahjo does utility so much better, and enchanting too, with a lovely sacrifice ability to boot. (Alchemy sac) And here comes my biggest complaint, he is only good for healing, and many other deity's already have healing abilities, all you gain is Light of Fo, Which yes, is a great healing spell... for rifts. Events, PvP. But... Unless if you have alts and are obsessed with having every ability, Light of Fo does not balance the massive losses and utility, and Fo's passives are mediocre, with absolutely no skillgain bonuses, this deity just does not appeal to me at ALL. But Animal Passive is nice. Riding hellies. I wish there was a healer deity that didn't make you give up enchanting, because that is a huge kick in the butt. Nathan and Paaweelr don't make you give up enchanting for warrior damage bonuses. I just don't get this deity. And it sucks for me too, I love healing. In terms of buffs he is alright. Sporting Bearpaws, Forest Giant Strength, and Oakshell, Bearpaws is kind of the only way to grind weaponless fighting, but. Why would you want to do that? Oakshell is a great spell for when you want to grind shield skills without having your armour take damage. And Forest giant strength is decent, a fair spell for buffing a newbie. But not that great if you are already strong seeing how body strength scales at higher levels. Oh and 1 thing, Fo is the only deity with "Toxin" an enchant that boosts jewellery damage for poison wounds, complimenting Venom and giving him a slight bit of uniqueness. To sum it up, this deity isn't a lot imo. His only focal point is healing. And that alone is not of much desire since other deity's have healing spells. And much better enchants/passives.
     
  • Tosiek: This one is just plain confusing to me, compared to Libila which this one is very similar to, it just seems. Like less. The damage spells are worse, you loose some damage spells, you loose Truehit, you loose some enchants. You loose PASSIVES, all you gain is charm animal, refresh Mind Stealer. It's just so lopsided. However you do gain a 10% skillgain bonus which is kinda big, but It's just not enough, It's worse in almost every way. And I struggle to see why someone would pick this over Libila.
     
  • Paaweelr: This one is actually very well balanced, Hypothermia and shard of ice are heavy damage enchants, with a nice combat edge too, sporting a 15% increase in weapon damage and a 25% increase in combat skillgain, Paaweelr is an interesting alternative to Vynora AND Magranon, he is most similar to Nathan imo, in terms of enchants. And speaking of that, Paaweelr is a great enchanter. In weapon enchants he has FA and Nimbleness, in armour he has both AoSP and Web Armour unlike Vynora. AND he has Blessings of the Dark instead of CoC+WoA, which is an interesting difference. In terms of utility you get Charm Animal, Wisdom of Vynora, and same sacrificing bonuses as Vynora, this deity feels like a well balanced Vynora alternative with a combat edge for those who like casting, and fighting. He even has Cure medium! Paaweelr is a nice deity that you can fight in, that doesn't force you to give up being an enchanter. Also you get disintegrate which is cool because you can't mine as Paaweelr. But you get to smash rock walls.
     
  • Nathan: Hey Nathan, my bae. The deity I myself plan on going after I'm done grinding channelling. This one is very similar to Paaweelr in many ways, a good combat deity and enchanter. He sports zero pendulum enchants unlike all deity's. But that isn't a huge deal. In terms of weapon enchants he is nice, doesn't sport nimbleness but you still get that WoA effect from BoTD, as Nathan you get Venom and Essence drain, which are both fairly rare and good enchants for weapons. For tools he has BoTD, as an alternative to both CoC and WoA, and he has both AoSP and Web armour, making him a well rounded enchanter. He is extremely similar to Paaweelr, only instead of Charm animal you get Dominate, you do loose Wisdom of Vynora which hurts, but you do gain alchemy sacrifice, which is a huge deal. Being able to throw garlic/rosemary (Libila and Gary and Tosiek have this too) in an altar and gaining huge amounts of favor is a life saver, and it puts many other deity's to shame, I wish there was more balance amongst other deity's without reducing the alchemy sacrifice, like making cordage ropes good again and making sacrificing bonuses better, but hey I'm not supposed to be talking about this yet. But yeah. In terms of passives he has a 15% damage bonus, he has the 25% increased combat skillgain bonus which is lovely. He also has disintegrate like Paaweelr. To make up for the fact that he isn't as good of a mage in general as Paaweelr. Nathan sports all three tiers of healing. Focused Will, Cure medium, Cure serious, and Scorn, which as I said before, can be a great healing spell depending on the situation, and also can be absolute garbage. I like this guy a lot. Another example of a good caster without giving up that many combat powers.
     
  • Nahjo: Lets start this one out with casting. As a caster he isn't that bad, sporting Wind of ages, Mind Stealer, Aura of shared pain Essence Drain. Sort of a much lesser Vynora, but he massively makes up for it in being the best utility priest there is. Sporting Genesis, Mend, alchemy sacrifice Strongwall Light Token and even Charm Animal + Oakshell, and even a lovely 10% skillgain bonus makes him the best priest for grinding channelling there is. Having Human Demise, and Lurker in the Dark makes him the best grinder. Although he suffers in terms of combat he sits in sort of the same boots as Vynora, being a great utility. I still highly recommend this deity even after the overhaul due to these many bonuses. Even though he does suffer as an enchanter. It's a good deity to start with and a good one to have in your pocket.
     
  • Smeagain: Now this one is confusing to me, it has many bonuses, all of them mediocre, she sports a slight healing bonus, a stamina bonus, and half stamina drain on rock, she is also immune to lava burns, all of these bonuses are useless (except for rock stamina), and she even doesn't have an increase in any kind of skillgain which is a huge turn off. As an enchanter she has Life Transfer, Blessings of the dark instead of CoC+WoA so no skillers or easy enchanting on horseshoes, but a very nice spells nonetheless. Web Armour, and that's about it. Not the strongest enchanter. She is a decent healer though, sporting Heal and Cure Medium, but those aren't the best spells, only for events. She has dominate which is kind of fun... Truehit which in all my tests doesn't increase your chance to hit by much at all unless if you are a newbie. So she is just sort of an... Intermediate healer, intermediate caster. With other deity's providing better healing by a long shot, even Nathan. This deity just seems... Confused, but she is a good climber sporting half stamina on rock tiles and refresh. Which is cool. But... Yeah, I just don't really... Get why anyone would pick Smeagain over Nathan or Vynora, or Paaweelr, or Libila. Just... strange. She's alright as utility, but she lost strongwall in the overhaul, but does have Genesis, but yeah, no skillgain bonus and sub-par healing spells and not many enchants makes for a sub-par deity with no real powerful focal point.
     
  • Gary: This one, is just holy what on earth why does it exist... As an enchanter, Gary has Blessings of the Dark, and Lurker in the Woods/Dark, That's it, okay, so, there is very little enchants at the gain of what? Nothing! No damage bonuses, no healing passives, no skillgain passives in anything, as a mage he is decent, but other deity's do him much better, as utility he has Genesis, that's all. As a healer he has Cure light which is a good spell, but, there's just nothing here! It's almost strange how horribly balanced this deity was in release, at least give us some nice choices but this guy just lacks in EVERYTHING, all corners, all fronts, he lacks. I just don't get it, do NOT go Gary. They even removed Charm and Dominate from him. So he was looked at... Maybe. The whole thing was rushed. The only redeeming quality of this deity imo is the fact that he has alchemy sacrifice And he does have Forest Giant Strength plus Hell Strength, but those two spells are incredibly difficult and expensive in favor, so they hardly work in most cases...
     
  • Afterthoughts There are many imbalances in place still with many deity's. Many deity's suffer having any real focal points, and alchemy sacrifice is an overwhelming bonus that can draw many to BL. I suggest increasing value of cordage to 1.5 because veggies still far outweigh the work/effort that it takes into making cordage ropes. And rope tools aren't as easy to manage considering how good addy knives are. Nobody will grind to 90 ropemaking to get a slight increase in resourcefulness... Especially considering how fast veggies are to make. And as I have stated before. It bothers me how much of a penalty most deity's receive in order to have decent healing spells. Healing by itself isn't a strong focal point, especially on freedom. Which is why I would never choose Fo or Smeagain. And if you think that Oakshell/Forest Giant Strength is enough of a thing to give up enchanting, then no. And the reason why I didn't include Charm Animal is because many other deity's like Paaweelr have charm, and Paawee is a fantastic caster/freedomer.

    I have seen it especially from @Etherdrifterthe guy seems to not be happy about Fo's situation, Fo just didn't gain much at all from the overhaul, and I can see why he isn't happy, because I wouldn't pick him. But on another note... in this entire list I did not really list the useless spells. Like goat shape, and Cleanse for example. Only the highlights, like enchants, certain buffs. And great passives/Skillgain bonuses. The things that people should really focus on when picking a deity. And the things that are good for freedom/PvP life. When it comes to choosing a priest, it isn't easy. But I hope this list will help people know which deity to choose for their life style. Holy cow this post is a lot longer than I mean't it to be. O_O
Edited by Wiolo
Corrected a few typos.
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This post was poorly formatted, and I may make a better version of it in the distant future. But for now I will just leave this be here since I got lazy.

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A very nice summary!  Well done!

 

From what I have seen over the years, the real crux is that priests are not balanced with PvE in mind (for example, the heal nerf was aimed at PvP balance, not PvE balance).  They are balanced based on their PvP utility.  Thus Fo's healing is weighted quite highly as it is a very useful PvP role.

 

I personally have a gripe with this, but I have no real solution to offer that wouldn't negatively impact PvP balance.

 

Long story short; I've given up hope on the matter.

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10 hours ago, Wiolo said:

But Animal Passive is nice. Riding hellies

^^^Fo

 

Yeah, I pretty much agree with most of what you said about all the deities.  On WO Fo is a nice RP deity and Animal Passive & Genesis are nice but hardly worth paying prem on an extra alt just to have Genesis.  On the WU servers I play though, where there are no priest restrictions and your main can be a priest, I always choose Fo on my main because of the Animal Passive & Genesis & use alts for Vyn & Mag.  Not just for the hellies but, but on my main there's a lot to be said for not being constantly harassed with trash mobs nipping at your heels everywhere you go when you're not in the mood for a fight, especially when on your way to bed to log off and get hit with the log-off timer because a wolf decided to bite your arse as you pass by, just as you're almost home.  lol.

Edited by Amadee
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WTB convert to Afterthoughts (?)

 

Edited by tamat
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11 hours ago, Wiolo said:

but this guy just lacks in EVERYTHING

 

I.... do not   :  (

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Oops! Sorry that I forgot to give spell information on Afterthoughts.
@MrGARYYou do, don't deny it!

Edited by Wiolo

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Smeagain honestly has my favorite combination of spells by far. BotD, Life Transfer, and Web Armor? Sign me up! 

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3 Enchants ain't a huge amount, but those are some nice enchants! I just believe that deity's should have very strong focal points. And I fail to find a good focal point in Smeagain, just kind of intermediate in everything. With no skill bonuses. But that in itself is kind of cool being intermediate in so many things. But Nathan for example is in many cases a better healer, and Enchanter. Venom and ED are both great enchants with both armour enchants. Etc. Plus alchemy sacrificing which is cool.

I was very comparative when I made this list. And compared to other deity's, Smeagain just doesn't do as well in many compartments. Too many compartments.

Edited by Wiolo

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Great write up and I completely agree, there is definitely more that needs to be touched up in regards to the priest rework. I don't think anyone expected the priest rework to come out as a golden egg. It was a significant rework that drastically changed the meta on both PvE and PvP. Those metas are now mostly stabilized and I think it would be wise to revisit the current state of affairs and make some minor adjustments (many of which you suggest).

 

On 9/11/2019 at 8:49 AM, Etherdrifter said:

From what I have seen over the years, the real crux is that priests are not balanced with PvE in mind (for example, the heal nerf was aimed at PvP balance, not PvE balance).  They are balanced based on their PvP utility.  Thus Fo's healing is weighted quite highly as it is a very useful PvP role.

 

The change was not made specifically for PvP. It was also done to prevent a single player from tanking all the damage of any creature in the game by having a healing alt. Through the previous system someone was able to take damage indefinitely so long as someone was casting healing spells on them. With the new system, it's now soft capped so that they're only able to tank a total of 3x their total health per 20 minutes. In return for the change, most of the healing spells were buffed to frontload healing under the assumption that the healing debuff was not active. All healing spells (if I recall correctly) do more initial healing than the iteration before the rework.

 

I get why it's viewed as a nerf, and in a way it was. I personally consider it a change. It was buffed under some circumstances, and nerfed in others. However, had the previous iteration continued to go on, you'd end up in a situation where no challenging content could ever be brought to the game. Any creature added to the game (assuming it's incapable of one-shotting a player) would be rendered easy by indefinite tanking via Fo healing.

 

I'm also on the same page in regards to not being able to think of a better solution. I still don't know what better method exists to prevent the issue of immortal players in PvE. We found a single solution that hit the mark for solving problems on both sides. Players on PvE could no longer be immortal through healing alts and PvP players could no longer use Light of Fo as a get out of jail free card.

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3 hours ago, Sindusk said:

The change was not made specifically for PvP. It was also done to prevent a single player from tanking all the damage of any creature in the game by having a healing alt. Through the previous system someone was able to take damage indefinitely so long as someone was casting healing spells on them. With the new system, it's now soft capped so that they're only able to tank a total of 3x their total health per 20 minutes. In return for the change, most of the healing spells were buffed to frontload healing under the assumption that the healing debuff was not active. All healing spells (if I recall correctly) do more initial healing than the iteration before the rework.

 

I get why it's viewed as a nerf, and in a way it was. I personally consider it a change. It was buffed under some circumstances, and nerfed in others. However, had the previous iteration continued to go on, you'd end up in a situation where no challenging content could ever be brought to the game. Any creature added to the game (assuming it's incapable of one-shotting a player) would be rendered easy by indefinite tanking via Fo healing.

 

I'm also on the same page in regards to not being able to think of a better solution. I still don't know what better method exists to prevent the issue of immortal players in PvE. We found a single solution that hit the mark for solving problems on both sides. Players on PvE could no longer be immortal through healing alts and PvP players could no longer use Light of Fo as a get out of jail free card.

 

Prior to rifts, the only use for healing magic was for unqiues (something <1% of the player population partook in as a hunter/killer role).  The front end healing of cure light wounds, cure medium wounds, cure serious wounds, LoF, and heal were all buffed slightly by adding in a power variation.  However only one of these worked out as a real buff, heal became usable again since it was no longer entirely RNG based.  The rest were pretty token, and really only made rifts harder for those players not near the engame (endgame players have 0 fear of rifts because their endgame armour is strong enough to tank most of the damage with minimal heals).  It may have changed things with uniques, but I very much doubt it since the math says just rotate out 2+ tanks, the exploit still exists, it has just evolved.  This isn't actually the issue I saw no resolution to; the nerf you need is to introduce some forms of damage that healing magic cannot fix, and then make all uniques inflict it.

 

The issue I see no resolution to is I can think of no way to buff fo as a priest, because fo is powerful for PvP, but lackluster on PvE.  Any buff given on PvE carries over to PvP, and hence renders fo overpowered on PvP.  We've not got any unique utility for PvE, but we have a strong utility on PvP (because healing is an essential utility in PvP).

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Healer is a niche class. And Fo is just dedicated to it.

Other priests have the ability to easily heal themselves other than Fo.

Edited by Wiolo

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I have a Fo priest in PvE, and honestly, it's fun as hell. It depends on your playstyle, but being able to easily heal myself, tame anything that can theoretically be tamed, refresh my stamina, Oakshell myself without having to carry heavy armor, and hang out with the non-hostile crocodiles and bearsharks are all *amazing* if you like to go traveling and exploring. Most stuff isn't hostile to me, my survivability is amazing, and I don't have to worry about stamina much at all while climbing.

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