My Charname in Baldur's Gate was a Dwarven FIghter/Cleric 9 times out of 10. A little disappointed to see that going away with the nerf to Priest health, but I suppose they can still be used as fighter characters, just not tanky fighter characters. And the Paladin may be able to fill that role as well. Is there a PoE equivalent to "Draw Upon Holy Might"? If so, I'll be happy. 

Edited September 30, 201411 yr by Matt516

My Charname in Baldur's Gate was a Dwarven Fighter/Cleric 9 times out of 10. A little disappointed to see that going away with the nerf to Priest health, but I suppose they can still be used as fighter characters, just not tanky fighter characters. And the Paladin may be able to fill that role as well. Is there a PoE equivalent to "Draw Upon Holy Might"? If so, I'll be happy. 

I'll come around to Paladin's later but while good in a party from what I could see, they just under perform in every category compared to Fighter, and their very limited resources, while nice in very specific situations, do not change that much.

Using the same equipment and overall same stat distribution, Paladin just can't tank as well and can't do **** for damage either. They are decent support DPS classes and off-tanks however but really, you only want them for the +ACC aura and the fact that they'll probably have some cool dialog options based on their paladin order

 

As far as Draw Upon Holy Might, it's all AE based, not self. Devotion of the Faithful and Dire Blessing are crazy just now when used in combination but since mobs and encounters are not balanced, it's hard to really judge. Cautious Attack modal is nice too, with it's +15DEF, but I rather grab Weapon Focus and Empowered Interdiction and really, I haven't been able to turn a Priest into a godlike killing machine so far like you could in IE games sometimes.

 

As there are some good Priest Spells in PoE. But not everyone uses all of them.

Indeed, Priest spells as they are are quite nice overall and do the job they are meant to pretty well. Mob/Encounter balancing just isn't there though and that makes it hard to really get a feel for what a Priest can offer during a tough battle. We can guess based on what the spells do, but can't really test it yet.

Edited September 30, 201411 yr by mutonizer

This is very off-topic, but since people are comparing the BG2 cleric to PoE priest.

 

Level 1:

Armor of Faith - 5% damage reduction at lvl 1, 25% at lvl 20

Sanctuary -  level 1 invisibility spell that doesn't break when casting non-combat spells

Doom -  a stackable -2 penalty to all saves and thac0, the slayer of dragons

Command - a "knockdown" for 1 round, very useful at lower levels

Bless - minor party buff

Protection from Evil - +2 to all saves and AC vs evil

Cure Minor Wounds

 

Level 2:

Draw Upon Holy Might - +1 to str, dex, con per 3 levels, stacks with item bonuses (capped at 25)

Silence 15' Radius - very good

Remove Fear - always useful

Slow Poison - poison is very deadly

Aid - +1 to attack and saves and a minor 1d8 health buff, pretty good at low levels

Chant - minor party buff

Hold Person - small AoE stun, okay at lower levels

 

Level 3:

Holy Smite - fireball vs evil enemies, blinds on failed save, potentially a party-friendly fireball

Animate Dead - 90% magic resistant skeleton warrior at lvl 15

Dispel Magic - depends on caster and recipient levels

Cure Disease - cures disease, blindness, deafness and feeblemind

Glyph of Warding - a skull trap with a save, I don't use it personally, but I can see it being useful

Invisibility Purge - very useful if you can't afford slots for True Seeing

Miscast Magic - low chance of working, but when it does 80% spell failure for enemy casters

Zone of Sweet Air - **** cloudkill

Remove Paralysis

Remove Curse

Cure Medium Wounds

 

Level 4:

Holy Power -  grants base thac0 to equal to that of a fighter, sets strength to 18/00, stacks with draw upon holy might if cast first!!!

Defensive Harmony - short range and duration +2 AC party buff, very useful

Death Ward - immunity to death spells, i.e. finger of death, power word kill

Free Action - immunity to movement affecting spells i.e. slow, web

Lesser Restoration/Negative Plane Protection - removes/immunity level drain

Protection from Evil 10' Radius - amazing party buff

Cure Serious Wounds

 

level 5:

Righteous Magic - +1 strength for every cleric level, maximum damage on hits like kensai's kai

Mass Cure - you don't get an AoE heal until level 5 spells, what is this nonsense!?

Flame Strike - pretty strong single target damage spell

Chaotic Commands - immunity to mind affecting spells i.e. confusion, domination and even maze

True Seeing

Magic Resistance

Cure Critical Wounds

 

 

So my point is that if you don't know how to play clerics, don't say that they only have healing spells GTFO.

 

On a side note: cleric/mages can can put cleric spells into Sequencers i.e. bless+chant, 2x doom, Greater Malison+Glitter Dust+Doom, 3x holy smite, 3x flame strike, 3x bolt of glory, Righteous Magic+Holy Power+Draw Upon Holy Might

 

Chain Contingency: haste+2x regeneration, you basically can't die unless you get one shot.

 

You did your research, nice. Many of those are situationally good.

 

Im still loading my clerics up with healing spells for the most part.

 

Ah sequencers. Good times.

My Charname in Baldur's Gate was a Dwarven FIghter/Cleric 9 times out of 10. A little disappointed to see that going away with the nerf to Priest health, but I suppose they can still be used as fighter characters, just not tanky fighter characters. And the Paladin may be able to fill that role as well. Is there a PoE equivalent to "Draw Upon Holy Might"? If so, I'll be happy. 

 

Well, I stand corrected, there is actually a level 5 Priest spell that boosts MIGHT, PER, DT on a target for a bit. Not self only but heh.

My Charname in Baldur's Gate was a Dwarven FIghter/Cleric 9 times out of 10. A little disappointed to see that going away with the nerf to Priest health, but I suppose they can still be used as fighter characters, just not tanky fighter characters. And the Paladin may be able to fill that role as well. Is there a PoE equivalent to "Draw Upon Holy Might"? If so, I'll be happy. 

Yeah, I like divine characters in DnD. However it's easy to go over the top for fighty clerics. 3rd and 3.5 edition clerics were better at tanking than fighters and could cast spells too. I don't envy Josh's job trying to make them feel right.

"Trying" is the key word here.

I suggest you read the wiki.  Many, many of these spells have PE equivalents.  Furthermore, has it ever occurred to you that maybe clerics were a little over-powered in D&D games?  Maybe all their abilities needed to be spread out to other classes.

 

Draw Upon Holy Might - +1 to str, dex, con per 3 levels, stacks with item bonuses (capped at 25)!

Holy Power -  grants base thac0 to equal to that of a fighter, sets strength to 18/00, stacks with draw upon holy might if cast first!!

Well, why have a fighter?  Seriously.

 

Zone of Sweet Air - **** cloudkill

Great, now I have to have priest or casting paladin in every party if they use cloud magic (which was frequent).

 

Sanctuary -  level 1 invisibility spell that doesn't break when casting non-combat spells

Great!  Why learn invisibility?

 

Lesser Restoration/Negative Plane Protection - removes/immunity level drain

Thank god there's no level drain in this game.  What a tedious mechanic.

Edited October 1, 201411 yr by anameforobsidian

Fighters have higher hit points, base thac0, grand mastery and max weapon style spec. Holy power lasts 1 round/level.

 

If you don't think invisibility is useful, then I got news for you.

 

Level drain made vampires scary.

 

I have a feeling you didn't like mage battles.

Furthermore, has it ever occurred to you that maybe clerics were a little over-powered in D&D games?  Maybe all their abilities needed to be spread out to other classes.

 

Well, why have a fighter?  Seriously.

 

D&D made Clerics OP? Really? Well fancy that. I do declare we have Captain Obvious in our midst. To some people, they're just healing bots to leave on the back line to throw a healing spell every now and then.

 

So you're suggesting D&D clerics are more OP than the ones in PoE and PoE is doing it right with spreading abilities to other classes? How are they OP in the IE games? Did you have a Cleric on the front line?

Clerics aren't op in 2nd ed IMO, 3rd ed made them OP.

Fiebras, the fact that you only ever played clerics as "boring healers" in Infinity games is not the games' fault. The options were there, you just chose not to use them.

 

In particular, you completely ignored the multi-class/dual-class mechanic, which together with self-buffs and offensive spells (including epic spells) could turn a priest into an engine of destruction. A Half-orc Fighter/Cleric was an awesome character. You've also ignored the priest kits, some of which (e.g. Priest of Talos) added a very interesting taste to the "boring" class. 

 

In PoE, however, priests feel lackluster compared to the classic CRPGs. The same can be said of all other classes, though. My overall feeling is that PoE is shaping up to be not a thoroughbred reincarnation of the old genre, but rather an unfortunate cross between a classic party-based CRPG and an Action RPG like Diablo. And as we know, a jack of all trades is master of none (which is why bards suck).

Yes I chose not to use the class to its full potential, hence why I probably found them boring and I never played with a Cleric PC in IE games so I was only exposed to the preset ones which I didnt find interesting in comparison to mages and the like.

 

I disagree that PoE Priests feel lackluster though thats simply my opinion. Do keep in mind that PoE Prietss we have seen have been at most level 8 so se dont really know how good or bad they will be later on while in classic CRPGs we were exposed to a wide variety of levels and types and kits. To me the mere fact that PoE priests have access to all their spells at any given time and there isnt a spell memorization mechanic make them better in a "quality of life"/comfortable sort of way to D&D Priests even if one could argue that this takes away a tactical option planing part to the system and makes it more "casual". I would disagree with that sentiment.