The Priest Problem

[Elric Galad]

Priest class seems fine.

There is currently an ongoing thread about per encounter spell of casters being OP, but apart for this, no one really complains about priest.

 

But when one tries to create a more or less powerful party, including a priest seems almost mandatory, because no other class can come even close for buffs.

 

Priest can do other stuff, including healing, damages and even crowd control (repulsive seal is just so good...). But other classes can do that too, so even if their abilities are powerful, they don't make priest a "mandatory" party member.

 

But buffs... They have always been force multipliers, so I believe their level of power is not a real problem. All optimized party should have a buffer, it's classic in this kind of games. Buffs are a part of the game.

 

But as there are no shamans.

Wizards have only single target buffs.

Druids are mostly damage dealer.

Paladins does not have many party buffs.

And chanter only sings 1,5 song at a time...

 

So I feel it is incredibly hard to replace a priest.

 

There are in my opionion 7 great priest party buffs.

Armor of faith (Paladin can replace)

Blessing (Paladin or galant focus can mostly replace)

Circle of protection (moonwell can mostly replace)

Dire blessing (I don't think another spell can do that)

Devotion for the faithful (probably the most critical and hardest to replace)

Shield for the faithful (paladins have a baby per encounter version of it)

Crown of the faithful (incredibly strong and impossible to replace)

 

(Probably some can also be replaced by scrolls or potions.)

 

If you manage to cast all the above, the fight is almost over. (For example, it is a total of +65 deflection.)

 

I don't count holy power because it is itself replaced by priest abilities.

Specific protection (charm, paralysis) and suppress afflictions are also very hard to replace.

 

 

So, in your opinion, is it possible to play without priest without feeling (a bit) gimped ?

 

Would you run PotD without one ?

 

Don't you think it is annoying that one of the classes is so hard to replace ?

Edited September 18, 2015 by Elric Galad

[Torm51]

In short I agree. I only play PoTD Trial of Iron so every hard fight is a risk and I can't do without those buffs.

[Boeroer]

Did two PotD runs without priests - no problem at all. Best thing about a priest for me is the Painful & Empowered Interdiction, especially if you have ciphers and barbs in your party.

[Teioh_White]

I agree with you that the priest doesn't really have anyone to challenge him for the role of buffer in a team. I guess Chante'rs supposed too, but we all know that class has a lot of issues with how the game's currently designed.

 

Priests aren't mandatory though, I've done plenty of runs without them. Mostly because Durnance gets old, and they don't do a great deal without micro. A good class, go course, though.

 

Also love interdiction, as it turns on Sneak Attack at the start of every fight for free, and is one of the few things the AI doesn't mess up doing. Just wish the AI could also use Radiance with it at the start.

[Elric Galad]

The funny thing is that the solution seems obvious : chanters with a little rework could fit the role of alternative to priests.

 

Not as equals, it is not the point, but well enough to make priest not a mandatory choice.

Chanters have other advantages : they have great summons and they are also very good tanks.

 

With a little help from paladins and druids (moonwell, nature's bounty...), they would perfectly fit the role.

 

Chanters and priests are also versatile enough to avoid overlap if you take both of them.

 

So basically, it is just another argument to rework chanter IMHO.

 

Priest class itself doesn't really need a rework. It is more a problem of class role distribution.

Edited September 18, 2015 by Elric Galad

[KDubya]

I re-started a few different builds in 2.0 PotD. Got a Monk,  a Paladin, a Rogue and started a Cipher. Using all story companions and all of them have left Durance at the Keep, kept his staff though

 

I am not steamrolling the game but I'm proceeding as planned without any Priest on the team. My basic playstyle is to use every per encounter ability every fight, try to keep Itumaak alive with a LoH, use per rest abilities and spells sparingly. Many fights would not cast any per rest spells but if things started to go bad would bang them out as fast as needed.

 

For me, since I save my per rest spells longer than most, the Priest brought nothing to the team beyond Interdiction and the other AoE thing they have. Waiting to use a Priest Buff until after things have gone bad doesn't work very well, since they are supposed to be used before things go bad so that they won't go bad.

 

Priests are pro-active in stopping problems before they happen, Wizards, on the other hand, are great at reactive play styles. Nothing pulls the fat out of the fire better than a Wizard with a full Grimoire.

 

I also am getting great use out of Kana. With a pistol for an alpha strike, Durance's staff for reach and a weapon & shield he is versatile. I mainly use the terror chant to lower the enemies accuracy and the reduced slash damage chant on a loop. Once four chants are set, out comes the paralyze scream and the enemy gets mopped up. With the cross class Paladin chant I can use Pellegrina for the DR booster, maybe even try out using the cross class, DR booster and the charge aura on my double Paladin game.

[Torm51]

'Nothing pulls the fat out of the fire better than a Wizard with a full Grimoire."

 

Couldn't of said it better myself.  Just had a fight against Leyndra (the Blood Mother in Heritage Hill)  I thought I was out of range from her scream but wasn't so Durance, Sagani and Aloth went down.  Was just Me (Paladin), Pallegina and Eder up.  I had Reviving Exhortation and Durance does not have a rez yet.  Who did I revive? Aloth.  Full grimore, blinde, Miasma debuffed the Cean Gwla, Flames of Devotion to her face and shes dead.  Funny you said that cause that is exactly what I was thinking of.

 

 

I

[Sfzrx]

lmao you guys will know how useful priests are when you do alpine dragon, terrify resist and reduced duration, +20 accuracy buffs are what makes your party's cc land on the dragon, doing it without priest is just way harder, sure you can finish thaos and such without priest, you can even solo it,  but can you actually finish all contents in the game without priest on path of the damned？

[Elric Galad]

I was worried about dragon and Thaos fights too, but if the problem is just a couple of fights, then priest can be replaced by scrolls (scroll of valor and fear resistance in your example).

 

But I fear that devotion for the faithful is a gamechanger is most average to hard fights, so...

[Teioh_White]

I mean, of course you can beat POTD without a priest, they aren't even the most broken class. They can do plenty of broken things, of course, and a single priest can pretty easily lock a dragon down long enough to kill it. But other classes can do broken stuff as well, and anyone can use Scrolls, which can be spammed to beat most anything.

 

I've cleared the game on PotD/ToI, so no save scumming, with 5x Ranger, 1x Chanter, and it wasn't particularly hard. I did resort to Pet summons/Scroll spamming if a fight looked like it might go sour though. Would've likely had to play much more careful if I wasn't using those. (I hadn't ever really used scrolls before that playthrough, and I won't use them past that; just too good).

[Ymarsakar]

Horse archers and killing people before they even see you, is always a strong tactic, as it does not allow return fire except from certain types of enemies or pure number of mobs.

 

I sometimes had 2 ciphers, a chanter, a druid, a wizard, and a paladin. Everyone has a gun. The ciphers cast mental paralysis or the fractured hobble, plus +30% damage debuff, then everyone does a single alpha. Does about 180 damage in total, enough to nearly kill one of the adra wood casters.

 

The chanter's aoe flame lash buff is pretty good since it applies to spells and specials as well. With some good pulls and controls/terrain to herd the enemies, they don't get much chance to get into melee range.

Edited September 19, 2015 by Ymarsakar

[Tigranes]

Heh. And I remember all the threads complaining how priests suck.

 

I definitely agree about their usefulness, but they are not mandatory, they are not irreplaceable, and it's easy to run POTD without them. 

 

Priests, unlike D&D clerics, don't offer surefire get out of jail cards, e.g. dispel magic, because there are no 'hard' remedies by design. Their buffs are significant, but in fact, depending on your circumstances, sometimes it's better to just have another guy slamming away at the enemy than +5 Accuracy or +10 Deflection or +5 Might. That's not to knock down how good they can be at their job, but to say they aren't a must.

 

Ironically, to me the Priest becomes truly useful thanks to one particularly powerful spell - the repulsing seal. 

[Sannom]

lmao you guys will know how useful priests are when you do alpine dragon, terrify resist and reduced duration, +20 accuracy buffs are what makes your party's cc land on the dragon, doing it without priest is just way harder, sure you can finish thaos and such without priest, you can even solo it,  but can you actually finish all contents in the game without priest on path of the damned？

I think those specific buffs are available through scrolls. In fact, some very big protection spells are available through scrolls, including resistance against effects and that one scroll which 20 to all defenses.

[Boeroer]

lmao you guys will know how useful priests are when you do alpine dragon, terrify resist and reduced duration, +20 accuracy buffs are what makes your party's cc land on the dragon, doing it without priest is just way harder, sure you can finish thaos and such without priest, you can even solo it, but can you actually finish all contents in the game without priest on path of the damned？

Yup. Several times.

[Sfzrx]

i play the game without consumables because the game is easy enough as it is, people can solo the entire thing triple crown, which is why i don't use potions or scrolls or traps, which makes priest buffs so useful, there are +15 accuracy buffs from potion/scroll but they don't last very long and don't have the +might and + perception buffs from priest. the +20 defenses scrolls are nice but u have to realize that the 20 all defenses from scroll stacks with priest;s buff, which is 25 deflection and 25 resolve, ends up being 50 deflection from just the priest, resulting in insane amount of enemy graze/miss, the game can be played in any way, but the priest offers way more to the team compare to other classes

[Tigranes]

Sure, if you decide to play without consumables then the priest becomes more important. And sure, priests offer more to the team compared to other classes, because they're a class built around offering stuff to the team.

 

Has anyone used cross-class talents to good effect, by the way, in making any class more synergistic with other party members? The +4 accuracy Paladin cross talent seems a decent one for anybody that has a spare talent lying around, for example, but some of them seem too underpowered to really be worth it. 

[Sfzrx]

if you've actually tried using the +4 accuracy paladin class aura you'll know how ****ty the radius is, the rest of the cross talents are all meh because they are per encounter/per rest, only the rogue one is decent, but again, no other party member can contribute as much as the priest because priest can

 

1st buff, 50 bonus deflection on your melee just makes them invincible, 20 accuracy, plus 8 perception, gives 28 bonus accuracy to your members, that reduce the chance of crowed control spells missing/grazing by A LOT on strong bosses, like adra/alphine dragons, reason why all ranged chars go woodelf start, even just 5 accuracy means a lot on path of the damned, not to mention the pure damage bonuses like extra crit and extra might,

 

2nd heal, priests have the most reliable and only reliable strong heals in the game, druids t1 and t3 heals are all trash because of their radius and caster centered, druid tier 4 moonwell is decent but it's still just a small heal over time, same with cipher's pain shell, only priest can provide strong and fast burst healing,

 

3rd, crowed control, when priest reaches high lvl, repulsing seal and pillar allows you to keep those targets that didn't get cced by your other aoe cc from wizard druid cipher down, tier 1 halt stops melee rushing for your backline, and

 

4th, damage, this one i haven't fully tested myself as my party's aoe damage was quite insane already, but the tier 6 priest spell spark of the soul of the righteous suppose to do insane amount of lightning damage when used on the frontline, and maybe along with some figurine/spell summons, i never knew about this until watching a video guide of someone's priest build, also, the priest tier 7 holy storm of holy fire is also a really good damaging tool, extremely large aoe, and it deals damage over time, means int and might both scale it's damage,the base damage is also good enough to not be rekt by high enemy dr, compare to wizard's **** tier 7s(except for hamemr which you won't use often and won't get until you kill the lich)and druid's ok tier 7s, priest's t7's minor avatar and storm of holy fire are just good.

 

while the tank roll can be swaped around paladin, monk, fighter, chanter, ranged auto attack role can be swaped between many different dps, wizard and druid can also somewhat replace themselves, i don't play melee dps so i don't comment on those, i think they are not as effective as ranged ones, the role of the  priest is just unique.

[Teioh_White]

Pretty much the only ones i've found useful are the paladin one, as you mentioned, and the rogue one. If using casters, by end game it's pretty trivial to have some sort sneak attack enabler up on the mobs, and it gives a nice .15 mod to all attacks. Most classes, especially the casters, don't get a ton of damage mods, so that extra .15 is pretty dang nice. Goes double if you don't like to make the entire team, as the story npc's often don't even get good mods out of their might.

 

The rest though I've found to be pretty worthless. I suppose Chanter, Fighter, and Cipher one are okay very early on, but something that should be respecc'd out of fairly quickly if you're okay doing that.

[KDubya]

Sure, if you decide to play without consumables then the priest becomes more important. And sure, priests offer more to the team compared to other classes, because they're a class built around offering stuff to the team.

 

Has anyone used cross-class talents to good effect, by the way, in making any class more synergistic with other party members? The +4 accuracy Paladin cross talent seems a decent one for anybody that has a spare talent lying around, for example, but some of them seem too underpowered to really be worth it. 

 

I've gotten the cross class Paladin Aura on Kana and it works pretty good. The range is the same as the paladin aura and Kana has above average intellect so it helps even more.

 

It is not as good as the paladin aura at +4 accuracy Vs +6 accuracy and 15% (?) graze to hit, but it would let you roll without a Paladin or take a different Paladin aura.

 

With a tank & spank playstyle you won't have Kana on the team in the first place, and your glass cannons have better talents to take while the AoE target, the tank, will be too far away to help his betters. Priest buffs would overwrite it anyway.

 

But if you roll w/o a priest and use a more melee focused group, then a melee Chanter with the Paladin cross class aura can help the team.

[Dinky Dino]

Did two PotD runs without priests - no problem at all. Best thing about a priest for me is the Painful & Empowered Interdiction, especially if you have ciphers and barbs in your party.

Is that a party without Druid or wizard? I always thought the interdictions cost 3 talent points to strengthen but the effect is what 7 seconds base of weakened and dazed? I mean with extremely high int it can go 12-13 seconds but that's 3 talents for a debuff that other classes can easily cast for no talent spending and for far longer. The accuracy buff and per encounter is neat but you only get 1 roll at it. I just wish it was longer. I really only use weakened on tough fights with certain enemies that I need to targe with fort or will and 7-12 secs isn't worth it for me.

[Luma Akasha]

Priests are good at what they do, but are by no means irreplaceable. If you find them to be, that's because of the playstyle you've adopted. A wizard and/or a cipher can just as easily make battles just as trivial if not more so. Aloth and Grieving Moher working in tandem can easily make it such that no one in your party gets so much as a scratch, negating the need for buffing and healing altogether.

 

It really does just come down to playstyle and priorities.

[Dongom]

Fix Chanters, problem solved.

[Boeroer]

Painful Interdiction is great because of the gigantic radius. I used it - and some sickening spells/abilities to prepare the crowd for my three ciphers' Amplified Wave (also big radius). That's more than -30 fortitude - so the waves never miss. It's like a per encounter auto win button. Also it synergizes well with a stunning barb who uses Threatening Presence and Brute Force plus the monk's Force of Anguish.

[dam]

So, in your opinion, is it possible to play without priest without feeling (a bit) gimped ?

 

Would you run PotD without one ?

 

Don't you think it is annoying that one of the classes is so hard to replace ?

 

 

Running POTD without a priest here.

3-man party works just fine.

[dam]

if you've actually tried using the +4 accuracy paladin class aura you'll know how ****ty the radius is, the rest of the cross talents are all meh because they are per encounter/per rest, only the rogue one is decent, but again, no other party member can contribute as much as the priest because priest can

 

You can run POTD without a priest quite easily.

You can run POTD without a maintank not quite easily at all.

 

So which is the most useful class now, your fighter/chanter/pala maintank, or the squishy mewling robed human they're covering for ?