What happened to priests?

Apparently priests are now wizards, but without the ability to swap grimoires (and oh, what fun ability that is). This is counterbalanced how, exactly? By the additional, fixed "domain" spell?

 

In PoE1 there were many priest spells that were just too situational to ever cast, so I very seldom did. Now their uselessness is guaranteed, since they won't even have a chance to be cast. Ever.

I thought, that balance changes were meant to make all the possibilities at least somewhat appealing and useful. This seems like a completely opposite direction.

 

Also seeing how MC characters now have less skill points to spend (wasn't this also supposed to be the other way around?), MC priests get shafted even harder.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Jajo

While I can understand this being the initial reaction, as it was also my initial reaction, let me provide some counter points for consideration.

• The Priest still has some of the best (if not the best) support spells in the game
• The Priest has much fewer "situational" spells and a lot more spells that are simply just useful spells
• You can now cast your spells much more liberally since they reset every encounter, making Priests even more effective
• Almost all of the Priest's "offensive" spells also provide debuffs or control of some kind
• Several of the Priest's buffs cover large areas and last for a while, making them great spells to simply cast every fight
• You will still easily end up with several spells in each spell level, enough to not feel like you're missing out

All in all, I think the Priest is in a better spot than they were in Pillars of Eternity. Their healing spells are insanely strong now with the rework to how health works, their buffs are usually party-wide and have long duration times, the deity-specific spells you get add a lot of versatility to the class that it didn't have before and with the proper build you can go very offensive, very supportive or a decent mix of the two.

While I can understand this being the initial reaction, as it was also my initial reaction, let me provide some counter points for consideration.

• The Priest still has some of the best (if not the best) support spells in the game
• The Priest has much fewer "situational" spells and a lot more spells that are simply just useful spells
• You can now cast your spells much more liberally since they reset every encounter, making Priests even more effective
• Almost all of the Priest's "offensive" spells also provide debuffs or control of some kind
• Several of the Priest's buffs cover large areas and last for a while, making them great spells to simply cast every fight
• You will still easily end up with several spells in each spell level, enough to not feel like you're missing out

All in all, I think the Priest is in a better spot than they were in Pillars of Eternity. Their healing spells are insanely strong now with the rework to how health works, their buffs are usually party-wide and have long duration times, the deity-specific spells you get add a lot of versatility to the class that it didn't have before and with the proper build you can go very offensive, very supportive or a decent mix of the two.

 

 

Points 1, 4 and 5: This is to be expected. It was the same in PoE1 and not the point of this thread, since this thread is about what has changed, not about what has stayed the same.

Points 2 and 6: This I do no agree with. The spell pool is same-ish enough, that I can't really see the difference just from memory (this is, however, a personal 'not-fact'. My reference is ~250 hours in PoE1). Also, one of the reasons, why I made this topic is, that with a very limited spell selection I do in fact feel like I'm missing out (4/PL for a pure priest, LOL/PL for a MC one, if all you do is pick spells).

Point 3: This is a global game mechanics, that is the same for all classes. I really don't see how this makes any particular class better than others.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Jajo

Due to Eothas crisis deities no longer support clergy with power. They need to fight like warriors.

 

I have no complaints about general game mechanic, per encounter spells and empowerment. (at least not in the scope of this topic)

Priests are allowed to use alabasters, rods, and dual scepters.

Tier 4 spells are nice.

 

You could MC Priest with /Chanter, /Paladin, /Wizard. And if you are into buffing, healing that could be a correct route.

 

Complains:

Holy Radiance is just 1x cast tier 2(or3) spell. Which is not much for class feature.

Holy Radiance does not alter with deity.

You dont really have ways to spend your level points on. It doesnt matter how many spells per level you know, you can only cast them twice. Casting "restore" twice is fair choice. This is why MC is good, you can take class with passives, or more active skills, and dump your points there.

No passives. No passives related to deity. Not even related to casting.

There are some passives at power level 5+, but that does not solve excesive level points in your tier 1-4.

Buff/Debuff spells with super short duration: Holy Meditacion

Single target buffs with long casting time for single buff: Prayer of the.. (the whole line) Or Champions Boon (8sec casting for 30 sec buff)

High level spells without power : Searing Seal.

Not much healing spells above tier 3.

The whole tier 5 has no good spells. There is resurection, but it is not spell we want to cast often.

Not so many summon spiritual ally/animated weapon spells.

The variety of things spells do is limited, which means that higher level spells could plain outclass lower, (how many Fit you need), and you cant just switch to something else, since there is nothing else (few spells). And debuffs are not really that good.

 

Suggestions:

Buff all tier 5 spells. Increase dmg of searing seal. Lower cast time of litany of the spirit and champion boon. Add healing to Barren door,

Move some neutral passives to level 1 and similar. Something other than arms bearer.

Introduce more neutral passives at all levels, so if your class abilities are low, you can just roll with neutral.

Introduce more caster specific passives, like giving even more healing, or more dmg with element spells.

Give dmg spell with theme physical dmg + debuff. (so it will be different from elemental aproach of wizard/druid).

Lower casting time for single target buffs.

Unless something is hard CC, increase duration for debuffs to like 30 sec, depending of the amount of debuffs.

Move Devotion of the Faithfull to tier 5, so there will be one spell which is garbade. Tier 4 has some ok spells.

More healing spells, at higher level or alter existing, like Hold the door healing target over time.

At higher levels do Heal+Buff, or Dmg+Debuff. To avoid power creep and "deal 200dmg" spells.

For spell classes give line of passives +1 spell cast at this level. Other classes could get +3 to resource pool at level 8/9.

Some crazy passives. Like "When you cast healing spell, regain 20 health yourself". Or "When you cast buff spell gain action speed boost for 20sec  (stacks 3 times)". More "Magran Champion, your fire attacks deal 10% more dmg".

 

That should help.

Edited May 21, 2018 by evilcat

Point 3: This is a global game mechanics, that is the same for all classes. I really don't see how this makes any particular class better than others.

 

Because the old 'Per Rest' classes benefit from the shift to Per Encounter more than the other classes.

Priests in POE1 were the most powerful character at medium-high level you can had. In POE2 there are almost no reasons to have one in your party. Aside from devotions for the faithful their buffs&debuffs are pathetic (with some exceptions) and their offensive capacities are severely limited. Unlike wizards they have no grimories so you have to spend skill points on spells.

 

Since the afflictions mechanics were changed priests also have lost one their biggest strength. Just remember how important was having a priest in the first stages of the white march against those pesky lagufeths. In terms of healing, druid, paladins and even chanters outclass them badly.

 

One of the few times I completed POE1 potd was with a magranite elf priest. During the entire game I had the feeling I was playing a powerful character. One who was able to make mediocre companions (like Aloth) powerful NPC's. I tried the same in POE2. There is no way. POE2 changes has hit priests so hard that outside of roleplay reasons you are better choosing other classes for your party.

 

Point 3: This is a global game mechanics, that is the same for all classes. I really don't see how this makes any particular class better than others.

 

Because the old 'Per Rest' classes benefit from the shift to Per Encounter more than the other classes.

 

 

All classes have/had per rest and per encounter abilities. To refer to my very first statement: how does this benefit priests more than (for example) wizards?

Aside from devotions for the faithful their buffs&debuffs are pathetic (with some exceptions) and their offensive capacities are severely limited. Unlike wizards they have no grimories so you have to spend skill points on spells.

 

While I do not agree about their buffs being pathetic, the big issue for me is their offensive capabilities, like you've said. Limitations force specialization and since their offensive capabilities are lacking with respect to other classes, they are thus rather forcefully relegated to being a fully support class. A damn shame, if one asks me.

Honestly, with how lame the buffs seem and how PAAAAAINFULLY long the casting times are, i can't see myself using them.

By the time the priest can cast a single buff spell, i have either killed everyone or the priest is dead (or at least interrupted). 

I'm not saying priests are not in need of a buff, but part of the problem is also how easy the game is and how unnecessary most buffs / debuffs are.

 

They do have some really good spells, aside from the lv4 ones which we can all agree are really good : suppress afflictions, iconic projection, dire blessing, despondent blows, champion's boon, both "pillar" spells, symbol of eothas, shields of the faithful etc.

 

But with most of those spells being so long to cast and combat being so easy to begin with, why even bother ? Just cast DotF and you're good to go.

Priests will be a lot more useful when enemy actually becoming threatening enough for you to start buffing defense and actually use healing spell for your team. Atm, supporting your own teams against a bunch of enemies that can barely tickle you is a waste of party member slot. It's like going to a tutor in your teenage year because someone challenge you to ace a 1st grade math problem.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Zeitzbach

 

 

Point 3: This is a global game mechanics, that is the same for all classes. I really don't see how this makes any particular class better than others.

 

Because the old 'Per Rest' classes benefit from the shift to Per Encounter more than the other classes.

 

 

All classes have/had per rest and per encounter abilities. To refer to my very first statement: how does this benefit priests more than (for example) wizards?

 

 

Which per rest abilities did Chanter and Cipher have? Wizard, Druid and Priest were the only classes built around the Per Rest idea, most of the others only had a couple of per rest abilities max.

 

Wizard isn't a valid example because it's another of the Per Rest classes.

 

If the 'global game mechanic' shifts to Per Encounter across the board then -everything else being equal- that's going to benefit the Per Rest classes more than the ones which were already Per Encounter, obviously.

To make the priest a competitive support class, the devs should dramatically hasten cast/recovery time for AOE inspirations/condemnations.

Also, speed up the cast time of all single-target or self-inspirations. Minor avatar should be 2 seconds. 

But some of the spells need to be revisited because they become utterly obsolete.

As is, it just disappoints me that Cleric multiclass has nowhere near the potential of the Battlemage and Priest is utterly relegated to support class while unable to ever achieve the general tanking ability of...a single-class Wizard. 
 

Edited May 22, 2018 by lpro

My favorite Priest spells are from PL 1: quick heal and suppress affliction. If I could trade all 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th level spell slots for more 1st level usages, that would be great (though 2/fight was always enough).

 

In theory you could make a Burn damage style Priest like in PoE 1. Is it optimal? No, but optimization isn't needed to easily clear content and play fun builds.

Which per rest abilities did Chanter and Cipher have? Wizard, Druid and Priest were the only classes built around the Per Rest idea, most of the others only had a couple of per rest abilities max.

You're right - chanters and ciphers come on top there. That's because they are vastly different from the priest class. This however has absolutely nothing to do with my original statement: Priests are now mechanically almost identical to wizards without grimoires.

Oh, but wait...

 

Wizard isn't a valid example because it's another of the Per Rest classes.

Yes. Yes they are a valid example.

Unless you are trying to argue, that D&D, PF and PoE1 got it completely wrong and should have limited their known set of spells years ago. I know that this is a ridiculous strawman, but unfortunately, this ridiculousness is the only way I can imagine dismissing my comparison in question (literally the first sentence in OP).

 

Aside from devotions for the faithful their buffs&debuffs are pathetic (with some exceptions) and their offensive capacities are severely limited. Unlike wizards they have no grimories so you have to spend skill points on spells.

 

While I do not agree about their buffs being pathetic, the big issue for me is their offensive capabilities, like you've said. Limitations force specialization and since their offensive capabilities are lacking with respect to other classes, they are thus rather forcefully relegated to being a fully support class. A damn shame, if one asks me.

 

 

Yeah, PoE1 priests are extremely versatile without ever feeling overpowered. They have buffs and debuffs, and some really good attack spells that start to come online at about 7th level, but they still can't perform all of those roles at once and have to juggle their approach, even with max Dex and spells that have both offensive and defensive components. It's been a blast playing one, especially because each new spell level brings a very different set of options online than the one before it.

 

As to the nerf, I could see the argument that priests in PoE1 are too essential for a party's basic functions, but that was mostly because priests were the only class with anti-CC abilities, aside from Liberating Exhortation. If there had been more ways to counter hard CC, that would have been less of an issue.

 

 

Point 3: This is a global game mechanics, that is the same for all classes. I really don't see how this makes any particular class better than others.

 

Because the old 'Per Rest' classes benefit from the shift to Per Encounter more than the other classes.

 

 

Nah. I've been replaying PoE 1 with a priest main, and one thing that people forget is that 4 spells/level adds up. Casters do have a limited number of spells/rest, sure, but in practice you get so many that you very rarely run out. In addition, any character that gets into melee has their own per-rest resource: health.

 

My experience has been that by the time you hit level 5, my various casters ran out of spells no faster than my beatsticks ran out of health. The priest had it even better, because Painful Interdiction and Holy Radiance were all I needed for most fights (a lot of fights in Act 1 are against Vessels, so that helps). By 9th level, I would say it was extremely rare that I would rest with even one level of spells depleted for any of my casters. The only time spell slot attrition matters at all is in areas where lots of enemies drop a particular status ailment, so I can reliably expect to drop the Prayer against that ailment at the beginning of every fight, and rest every 4 fights. Even there, beatstick HP will often deplete faster.

 

I always felt that PoE's rest system was mostly a formality and a pacing device - not a bad one, mind. Replaying has definitely solidified that opinion.

Edited May 21, 2018 by gkathellar

Priest is a trash class in PoE2, to be honest. Most of their spells are either single target or have a tiny AoE centered around the caster. They also have long cast times. How am I supposed to buff my whole team with Holy Might when it's a slow cast and has such a small reach that my party has to huddle around the priest? You can't start a fight that way.

 

The priest has one saving grace: Devotions for the Faithful. This is an overpowered spell on its own, made balanced by the fact that the class offers very little else. Priest healing spells are surprisingly awful, and other classes can supply most of the same inspirations as the priest buffs. You just don't need to rely on slow priest spells for it, my other characters can buff themselves with instant abilities that are as strong as most priest buffs.

 

Maybe if fights were longer and priests had better healing, it would be a more worthwhile class. As it is, pretty much anything that a priest offers can be done by a paladin who also gets a bunch of way better stuff and a giant bonus to defenses.

 

With the way buffs don't overlap in this game, a class centered almost entirely around buffs is just not good enough. 

I don't know. I use priest for heals in some battles. Sounds good to me. Plus using that lantern to catch souls is too cool. I love it.

Priest is a trash class in PoE2, to be honest. Most of their spells are either single target or have a tiny AoE centered around the caster. They also have long cast times. How am I supposed to buff my whole team with Holy Might when it's a slow cast and has such a small reach that my party has to huddle around the priest? You can't start a fight that way.

 

The priest has one saving grace: Devotions for the Faithful. This is an overpowered spell on its own, made balanced by the fact that the class offers very little else. Priest healing spells are surprisingly awful, and other classes can supply most of the same inspirations as the priest buffs. You just don't need to rely on slow priest spells for it, my other characters can buff themselves with instant abilities that are as strong as most priest buffs.

 

Maybe if fights were longer and priests had better healing, it would be a more worthwhile class. As it is, pretty much anything that a priest offers can be done by a paladin who also gets a bunch of way better stuff and a giant bonus to defenses.

 

With the way buffs don't overlap in this game, a class centered almost entirely around buffs is just not good enough. 

 

It's pretty much what some of us think about this class. Let's take a look of class roles for example:

- Paladin: Support/Tank & Viable DPS builds. A good class in POE2.

- Fighter: Jack of all trades in combat. Tank, dps, survivability. Another good class.

- Wizards & Druids: The same as POE1, with some changes but still viable and fun to play. Caster role.

- Rogues: Highest DPS single damage, good multiclass builds.

- Rangers: Solid ranged class, good dps, powerful pet, good multiclass combinations. Decent.

- Priests: ?? Party support? I doubt it.

 

To explain why priests are probably the worst caster class you can choose in POE2 it's needed to go through the entire spellbook and write a huge wall of text. But you can figure it by yourself if you take a look.  I'll try to summarize the problem that priest spells have:

- Long casting speed.

- Pitiful radius.

- Short duration.

 

A good example of a tier A+++ trash spell is Holy meditation. About 6-8s/cast for a 1.5m/radius friendly AOE +5RES that longs ?? 10 secs ??. You spend more time casting the spell than receiving it's benefits. It's pathetic compared for example to wizard self-buffs. And you may say that every caster has more or less useless spells but talking about priests this is not the exception is the rule.

 

There are only two exceptions at low-medium levels. Shining beacon and devotions for the faithful. If the better thing a class can do is to spam the same two-three spells during the entire game it's a sign that this class is broken. The only NPC priest (Xoti) has horrible stats for a single class priest. As useless as Durance in POE1. This is another thing to consider if you like to play with companions, and I do.

 

Priests need a major rework to offer something that other classes can't offer. At this moment, they offer nothing.

Edited May 21, 2018 by indika_tates

 

There are only two exceptions at low-medium levels. Shining beacon and devotions for the faithful. If the better thing a class can do is to spam the same two-three spells during the entire game it's a sign that this class is broken. The only NPC priest (Xoti) has horrible stats for a single class priest. As useless as Durance in POE1.

 

Priests need a major rework to offer something that other classes can't offer. At this moment, they offer nothing.

 

 

At least Durance in PoE 1 can offer CC immunity which is very useful because PoE 1 is loaded with enemies using CC.

 

 

There are only two exceptions at low-medium levels. Shining beacon and devotions for the faithful. If the better thing a class can do is to spam the same two-three spells during the entire game it's a sign that this class is broken. The only NPC priest (Xoti) has horrible stats for a single class priest. As useless as Durance in POE1.

 

Priests need a major rework to offer something that other classes can't offer. At this moment, they offer nothing.

 

 

At least Durance in PoE 1 can offer CC immunity which is very useful because PoE 1 is loaded with enemies using CC.

I feel like the whole point of priests on PoE 1 was to just spam all the Prayer against X at the start of every fight, cause otherwise your entire party gets paralyzed/dominated/stunned and wiped 

 

 

 

There are only two exceptions at low-medium levels. Shining beacon and devotions for the faithful. If the better thing a class can do is to spam the same two-three spells during the entire game it's a sign that this class is broken. The only NPC priest (Xoti) has horrible stats for a single class priest. As useless as Durance in POE1.

 

Priests need a major rework to offer something that other classes can't offer. At this moment, they offer nothing.

 

 

At least Durance in PoE 1 can offer CC immunity which is very useful because PoE 1 is loaded with enemies using CC.

I feel like the whole point of priests on PoE 1 was to just spam all the Prayer against X at the start of every fight, cause otherwise your entire party gets paralyzed/dominated/stunned and wiped 

 

 

PoE 1 stood for Paralysis of Eternity.

 

Cause that's really how you win or lose a game. PAralyse the crap out of everything or get perma stunned/dominated to death.

Guys, I think that you're all missing the OP's main point, which was due to the change from a priest having access to his entire spell selection (even if he only chose to use a few of them regularly) to having to select which spells a priest would know pretty much makes a fair number of seemingly situational spells unlikely choices to take.  Then you can only take a small handful of spells, you're more likely to choose the most generally useful spells, and not bother with more rarely used, situational spells.  It seems to me that priests kinda get boned by this mechanic.  And players never really get a chance to try out those more situational spells because they just don't dare take them.

 

It seems like it'd be better if priests had all of their spells available to them, even though their number of total castings at any given spell level remained limited, as it currently is in PoE2.  (This might also be true of Druids, as well, BTW.)

 

 

 

 

There are only two exceptions at low-medium levels. Shining beacon and devotions for the faithful. If the better thing a class can do is to spam the same two-three spells during the entire game it's a sign that this class is broken. The only NPC priest (Xoti) has horrible stats for a single class priest. As useless as Durance in POE1.

 

Priests need a major rework to offer something that other classes can't offer. At this moment, they offer nothing.

 

 

At least Durance in PoE 1 can offer CC immunity which is very useful because PoE 1 is loaded with enemies using CC.

I feel like the whole point of priests on PoE 1 was to just spam all the Prayer against X at the start of every fight, cause otherwise your entire party gets paralyzed/dominated/stunned and wiped 

 

 

PoE 1 stood for Paralysis of Eternity.

 

Cause that's really how you win or lose a game. PAralyse the crap out of everything or get perma stunned/dominated to death.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxUa3eL8kF4

Guys, I think that you're all missing the OP's main point, which was due to the change from a priest having access to his entire spell selection (even if he only chose to use a few of them regularly) to having to select which spells a priest would know pretty much makes a fair number of seemingly situational spells unlikely choices to take.  Then you can only take a small handful of spells, you're more likely to choose the most generally useful spells, and not bother with more rarely used, situational spells.  It seems to me that priests kinda get boned by this mechanic.  And players never really get a chance to try out those more situational spells because they just don't dare take them.

 

It seems like it'd be better if priests had all of their spells available to them, even though their number of total castings at any given spell level remained limited, as it currently is in PoE2.  (This might also be true of Druids, as well, BTW.)

 

Even if they have all spells available, it doesn't help majority of them ARE trash. BEside Devotion, HEal and Iconic projection, you can grab whatever and feels like you're missing nothing. Even go full talent if you feel like it.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Zeitzbach