Are Priests still a boring superfluous class?

[Boeroer]

The one thing that I'm really sad about when looking at the Deadfire Priest is that there's no more "Inspiring Radiance". That was my favorite talent in whole PoE and it's a pity (for me) it didn't find its way into Deadfire as a passive ability. I also like Aggrandizing Radiance - but that never had such impact.

Edited December 10, 2018 by Boeroer

[DozingDragon]

The one thing that I'm really sad about when looking at the Deadfire Priest is that there's no more "Inspiring Radiance". That was my favorite talent in whole PoE and it's a pity (for me) it didn't find its way into Deadfire as a passive ability. I also likes Aggrandizing Radiance - but that never had such impact.

Yes! The lack of any abilities that modify Holy Radiance is a huge bummer in Deadfire. I was hoping that priest-only trinkets might have brought something like this back, but it looks like that was never in the cards.

[Boeroer]

Priest-specific trinkets would be so nice. Wizards have their grimoire which alter the mechanis of the class significantly and a a big boon. Why can't priests have a (or several) symbols of their faith that do something else than just adding one per rest-ability? Give them more spell uses per encounter, give them a few special priestly spells for encounter-use (not per rest - could be even unique ones), raise the Power Level of spells that fit their deity - you name it. That would be nice.

[baldurs_gate_2]

I chose to quit Deadfire halfway through way back when to wait for all the patches and DLC. Semed like a good choice to let the game age a bit.

 

Now that we are all getting ready for 4.0, I wonder if I should care to import my Priest character from PoE1. My impression was that the Priest was a broken class in a game where you can only cast two spells from each circle, where you have to pick from a list of situational abilities, where buffs rarely stack and where even the martials can likely buff themselves out of trouble without half a dozen seconds of cast time to boot.

 

I mean, its all nice and dandy to use Wael as an excuse to give martials Arcane Veil but I really wanted to play as a caster of the God of ???????????. Further, being the Devotions for the Faithful bot doesn't seem very interesting at all.

 

Lately I've considered making a Priest/Cipher that focuses on targeting and debuffing enemy Will with spells like Shining Beacon, Divine Terror and all the goodies from Ciphers. If the Psion subclass gets some tweaks by next week this could be interesting, even if suboptimal.

 

TL;DR: should I play a caster Priest or should I just play a Wizard?

A solo priest is pretty useless. The VIII and IX spells aren't that good, so you should multiclass him with a wizard.

[Boeroer]

With solo you mean single class or a solo game?

 

In my opinion that's one of the worst combos you can do with a priest - unless you want to abuse scroll of Maelstrom + Deltro's Helm. But to each their own.

 

I like single class priests. Getting Devotions a lot earlier in order to boost your whole party while shoving the enemy down has serious impact on its own. Very far from useless. You also get access to Spellshaping a lot earlier.

Edited December 10, 2018 by Boeroer

[Delterius]

In my opinion that's one of the worst combos you can do with a priest

Do you know of any Priest/Caster combos that might be synergetic?

 

I'm thinking of trying Priest of Wael / Psion with the upcoming patch and focus on targeting and debuffing enemy Will saves. Seems like something Wael would approve, know what I mean?

Edited December 10, 2018 by Delterius

[Gromnir]

no matter how deft the mystic, he/she will not be able to use abilities faster than multiple party members working together, so why try? eder with club modal debuffs and aloth casts miasma while serafen uses psychovampiric shield or secret horrors or whatnot... all virtual simultaneous.  priest with divine mark or shining beacon then virtual auto crits.  best way to stack will debuffs is to use multiple party characters to do so. is even more options at higher levels.

 

is many priest multiclasses which boast either obvious or less salient synergies.  helwalker contemplatives are obvious synergizing well as we described earlier.  perhaps not so obvious is how berserker shamans using spirit frenzy line will also be getting benefit of staggered and tenacious applied to their spells... unless this were finally deemed a bug and fixed in the newest game builds. literal nobody had played a shaman 'ccording to obsidian early data mining. is some wacky stuff with wael' rod of god which synergizes with an itinerant build. etc. caster/caster multiclasses has a few very limited synergies.  boredom sounded as if it were a concern to the genesis poster, and most caster/caster multiclasses need be narrow tailored to be effective.  

 

unless you are playing solo, am thinking the options for initial reducing defenses (will or others) should be a collaborative party effort. yeah, it might feel repetitive to constant be casting devotions of the faithful to enhance other party member initial debuffing efforts, but such is another reason why bringing xoti along is a good idea-- let her do the boring priest stuff. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Delterius]

so why try?

 

I'm trying to work as a caster of Wael of sorts. Of course this wouldn't be the only person targeting Will for damage, or debuffing the enemy and whatnot. But it would make more sense to me as a Waelite to use the few CC Illusion spells they give you at PL5+ in conjunction with Shining Beacon, Divine Mark and assorted charms from Cipher than just spaming Mirror Image as a Gish Build of sorts.

[Flucas]

Nope. Go wizard.

 

Salvation of time and bdd are great, but i rather have another dps. I've tried priest multiple times and always found that other classes do their job better.

 

Lots of buffing = less fun to play as main. Sadly also annoying as npc because it will do its job far less optimal than you can.

 

I also discover everytime that most buffs are already available in most of my other mc combos, making half the skills redundant.

 

I know lots of ppl like priests - it depends a lot on what you want out of your main.

[Enoch]

Lots of buffing = less fun to play as main. Sadly also annoying as npc because it will do its job far less optimal than you can.

 

You do realize that you can control what all the characters in your party do, right? 

[Gromnir]

played our first shaman as a waelite berserker.  in spite of the obvious benefits of utilizing arcane veil on a berserker, we didn't actual cast it often.  were unneeded early and late.  early game we used rod o' god from range, and late we used the voulge. early game, when we mighta' needed arcane veil, it were not so much an issue at range.  late we had numerous spells to insta-heal and stave off death indefinite, so again, not much use.  wondrous torment and the spiritual weapon were the wael-specific spells from which we got the most use. gaze of adragan were also nice, but it targets fort defense, and we didn't get it 'til end of game.  as a shaman, we got most use from standard priestly spells as 'posed to wael-specific. 

 

am not suggesting going shaman, but am thinking folks reflexive use arcane veil 'cause it is so powerful. however, unless you go full ai/hands-off control, chances are you will be able to skip its use unless you wanna tank... and waelite tank is a fine build.

 

aside, am thinking warding seal, and other seals, is vast underrated priest spells.  may be cast and empowered before combat, so effective an extra empower for a combat encounter is nice.  also, warding seal, more than its damage, interrupts on hit. be able to interrupt multiple foes at start of combat w/o having to actual take a combat action is more powerful than we believe most folks realize.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps enoch brings up obvious but overlooked.  priests is fantastic buffers and good healers, so such is how most people play 'em.  is reasonable, but unnecessary. multiclass priests make excellent melee combatants or tanks or whatever.  the thing is, people who play multiclass priests often complain as did flucas 'bout boringness o' repetitive buff+buff+heal cycle. is an unnecessary problem.  you don't need use your multiclass priest to buff.  if is boring, don't. 

Edited December 10, 2018 by Gromnir

[Delterius]

 

Lots of buffing = less fun to play as main. Sadly also annoying as npc because it will do its job far less optimal than you can.

 

You do realize that you can control what all the characters in your party do, right? 

 

I think that he's just saying is that an NPC character won't be custom tailored (attribute wise) for your purposes, while, OTOH, being a main Priest isn't as appealing as other classes.

Edited December 10, 2018 by Delterius

[Boeroer]

Concerning Priest/Caster multiclasses:

 

I think a Priest/Druid can be a good support character. Lots of healing, lots of buffing, some good CC/debuffs and also some nice raw DoTs so he's not only supporting all the time but doesn't have to care about PEN. It's not sheer power he brings to the table but very high flexibility/variability. 

 

You could say the same about Priest/Wizard - but I always feel that Wizard multiclasses need some PEN bonus or something that lets them abuse Spirit Lance more.

 

A single Priest + a single Druid would certainly perform better - but you only have 5 slots in the party so a Priest/Druid may be fitting.

[Boeroer]

 

 

Lots of buffing = less fun to play as main. Sadly also annoying as npc because it will do its job far less optimal than you can.

 

You do realize that you can control what all the characters in your party do, right? 

 

I think that he's just saying is that an NPC character won't be custom tailored (attribute wise) for your purposes, while, OTOH, being a main Priest isn't as appealing as other classes.

 

I have to admit: while I like a single class Priests in my party it wouldn't be my fist pick as player character as well. 

[Guest Psychovampiric Shield]

Priest/wizard would be imo worth it for speedbuff alone. See, the problem of caster/caster multiclass is that power of casters is largely in spells, but spells can only be cast one after another, therefore there is little room for syngery (as was pointed out, two cooperating characters would be better), but selfbuffs actually may improve performance of the other part of multiclass. Sure, having a lot of spells, or more precisely spell casts, is good, early on outright great, but that is not exactly synergy.

[Flucas]

 

 

 

Lots of buffing = less fun to play as main. Sadly also annoying as npc because it will do its job far less optimal than you can.

 

You do realize that you can control what all the characters in your party do, right? 

 

I think that he's just saying is that an NPC character won't be custom tailored (attribute wise) for your purposes, while, OTOH, being a main Priest isn't as appealing as other classes.

 

I have to admit: while I like a single class Priests in my party it wouldn't be my fist pick as player character as well. 

 

 

No Enoch is right- it's just my personal style to not control npc's, and the AI just isn't as efficient. At the same time, I don't want to play a main charcacter who doesn't get to do more than buffing for half the fights. 

 

If you like controlling more than 1 char i can see a priest being worth it - in the right party (I always tend to make mc combinations who cover all relevant selfbuffs lol).

Edited December 10, 2018 by Flucas

[Ophiuchus]

Priest of Rmyrgand has some oomfph once you get a good Fortitude-lowering rotation.

[Boeroer]

That's why I like single class melee ranger or barb with a Morning Star: at some point I can lower fortitude by (stackable) 25 points in an AoE, then drop the bomb.

[Verde]

I like Priests for flavor but they don't have the appeal they had in PoE1.

[baldurs_gate_2]

With solo you mean single class or a solo game?

 

In my opinion that's one of the worst combos you can do with a priest - unless you want to abuse scroll of Maelstrom + Deltro's Helm. But to each their own.

 

I like single class priests. Getting Devotions a lot earlier in order to boost your whole party while shoving the enemy down has serious impact on its own. Very far from useless. You also get access to Spellshaping a lot earlier.

Single Class. With the rapid xp gain, it's better to MC him in my opinion.

[Boeroer]

What has the xp gain to do with that?

[Vaneglorious]

Concerning Priest/Caster multiclasses:

 

I think a Priest/Druid can be a good support character. Lots of healing, lots of buffing, some good CC/debuffs and also some nice raw DoTs so he's not only supporting all the time but doesn't have to care about PEN. It's not sheer power he brings to the table but very high flexibility/variability. 

 

You could say the same about Priest/Wizard - but I always feel that Wizard multiclasses need some PEN bonus or something that lets them abuse Spirit Lance more.

 

A single Priest + a single Druid would certainly perform better - but you only have 5 slots in the party so a Priest/Druid may be fitting.

I usually roll with Druid/Chanter + SC Priest. They take care of my party healing and support well enough. I even take a Pal/Chanter as my tank for support overkill.

[baldurs_gate_2]

What has the xp gain to do with that?

It does not matter, if you get it earlier in this game, because it is not hard enough and a SC priest is not strong as an MC later on in my opinion.

[Boeroer]

If I would want to follow that logic I'd say that in the late game it doesn't matter how powerful the high level stuff is because the game is way easier then than in the middle part (where you can profit from earlier abilities).

[Ensign]

If I would want to follow that logic I'd say that in the late game it doesn't matter how powerful the high level stuff is because the game is way easier then than in the middle part (where you can profit from earlier abilities).

This.

 

In evaluating power you mostly care about 3 points:

 

Level 3-4, when taking on the thugs or digsite;

Level 9-10, when the dialogue quests in Neketaka start to run out and you start fighting more;

Level 20, if you are going after megabosses.

 

If you aren't going after megabosses (and to some extent SSS challenges) the rest of the game is easy at 20. You'd need to have a pretty fail build to struggle there.

 

The main character is of course most relevant because you can't swap him/her out. You want something that is solid at all stages.