My first run - A strong Priest...but how?

[Climhazzard]

Concentration is lowered too, you can make up for it with Holy Meditation (level 1 spell), but it's always nice if you don't have to cast a spell in order to cast spells....

 

Trading a bit of constitution for resolve should be fine, they are both essentially survival stats, and resolve gives you more conversation options.

[Livegood118]

I was thinking the other day about what it would be like to have a Priest that completely ignores direct offence and focuses on Tanking/Buffing. Usually when I build a priest it's Durance and I go for an Arquebus, though at the end of my last full run-through my priest had something like 20,000 - 30,000 damage done, which was pretty low versus other classes. A lot of great priest spells are centred on the priest (e.g. consecrated ground) or have quite a short range so maybe there's more to gain from eschewing offence and focusing on support entirely?

 

Something like:

 

14 Might

12 Con

15 Dex

03 Per

19 Intellect

15 Resolve

 

Sword and Shield

Cautious Attack

Superior Deflection

Hold the Line

etc ...

 

Doing some preliminary calculations, it looks like you can get your Deflection around 130 towards the end of the game with a heavy shield and without buffs. Obviously you'd still need relatively light armour to keep spell recovery low and you wouldn't directly wade in to combat because of your low endurance – but your back line would be strong as hell and you'd definitely be the last to go down.

 

I'm probably going to do it next playthrough and see how it works out. You would still be able to do a fair bit of damage indirectly through Spark the Souls of the Righteous.

 

Edit: may be it could be some kind of "do no harm" Eothas RP.

Edited August 8, 2016 by Livegood118

[Nemesis7884]

Hi all, and first and foremost, thanks to all the people that supported me on my last very nooobish thread.

Now, as soon as this night of work ends, I'm about to start my campaign as a Priest. I know roughly what it should look like, and I've been advised that Eothas and Magran are the best role-playable deities. What do I need now? I need your best personal advices on all the rest of customizable options... such as race, background... homeland...etc. and possibly the reasons behind them. What I'm sure of is:

 

- I don't want to die easily, can't play squishy characters such as robed mages.

- I value roleplay a lot...the more dialog/play options I have, the better.

- I want to be very useful to my party.

- I want my toon to be "coherent".. I don't want to be an elven brute with 19 vigor... for example.. or be an elf with very low dex....

- That said I also like some "twists" to stereotypes. I don't necessarily need to be a cleric with mace and shield...

- I don't want any min-max. I'll play easy or normal, I don't revel in testing my mouse prowess, I value story and role.

 

Please, I wouldn't want any of you to feel like you're being "exploited" and do the job in my place... I'm just trying to gather your experiences, because I come from completely different rpgs, and I'm afraid I can lose something in the game experience, and I don't want to play the game 3 o 4 times just to try different paths....

 

A whole bunch of thank you for your patience from a nooooob.

 

to be honest i think a paladin in this game fits a lot better to what you want.... but you could alo play a tanky party buffer as others have stated... for example i am having durance in higher end medium armor, sword and shield and hes buffing and healing and tanking and throwing a lot of fire spells at the enemies (since i have 3 items that give me 3 fire spells each + the ones from the priests repertoire).

 

What could potentially work very nice is a moongodlike weapon + shield tanky/buffy priest....maybe eothas or magran... there are some very nice flails in the game.

 

As others have stated - high res/pers gives you other dialgoue options - but in 99% of the cases these have 0 consequences....

Edited August 8, 2016 by Nemesis7884

[Slack83er]

I play paladin in pen and paper so I wanna be different here. Sorry for not stating it in this post. Livegood, you're probably right with your build, but you're min-maxing a bit too much for my tastes... It's ok for me not to be the top damager or top-something... I just wanna enjoy the game at its full potential and story-wise. The pale knight just suits enough.... I don't have preferences with weapons or other things... I could go with spear, flail.... quarterstaff.... Quarterstaff is pretty beautiful on a cleric tbh... 

 

 

Edit.. you know... maybe the moon godlike appeals more to my style of play... I don't know how it works, but the elf seems to be very very squishy.... I started with medium armor and shield on easy, I ended up dead in no time...

Edited August 8, 2016 by Slack83er

[Livegood118]

I play paladin in pen and paper so I wanna be different here. Sorry for not stating it in this post. Livegood, you're probably right with your build, but you're min-maxing a bit too much for my tastes... It's ok for me not to be the top damager or top-something... I just wanna enjoy the game at its full potential and story-wise. The pale knight just suits enough.... I don't have preferences with weapons or other things... I could go with spear, flail.... quarterstaff.... Quarterstaff is pretty beautiful on a cleric tbh... 

 

 

Edit.. you know... maybe the moon godlike appeals more to my style of play... I don't know how it works, but the elf seems to be very very squishy.... I started with medium armor and shield on easy, I ended up dead in no time...

 

Oh yeah enjoy the game and go with something more fun. I was just thinking out loud.

[Abel]

My melee prietess fought with a bow in the backlines until lvl 6, although all her talents were melee oriented. Priests won't last in melee during the first levels. Lvl 1 they have a crappy accuracy and won't hit, they have a crappy deflection and will be hit a lot, and they have a crappy endurance and health, which means that they will die fast.

 

Boeroer said it. You will need several level for them to be potent, unlike monks, fighters and such. But their "power curve" is steeper. This basically means: any priest you will try will be squishie at first. But depending on how you build them, they can become a machine later on. Be it melee 2 handers, Squishies spell casters which change the tide of any fight almost alone thanks to their spells, or versatile solution that can do everything everytime, like mine.

 

Conclusion: with your priest, at first, don't go to melee. You have to be patient. Pick Eder and aloth, and durance, and kana fast. Use weapon + shield when you have them, or a bow. Start the prologue with a bow as soon as you find one. Switch to 2 handers lvl 6 (probably). If you use 2 handers, expect to be hit quite a lot, don't be surprised. You will need the boots shod in faith or items like that, or you will spend your time casting healing spells.

[DreamWayfarer]

I'm no good at min maxing. And i can't come up with optimal attributes. But if your character is a male, i would go with 18 MIG, 10 CON, 13 DEX, 12 PER, 14 INT, 11 RES. Or something along these lines. Boeroer should have better ideas though.

 

EDIT: though, in conversation, where only your character can talk, PER, INT and RES are the most usefull. MIG, CONS and DEX are better used in scripted interactions. But in these interactions, any character can do the job, which is not the case in conversations.

I think your stat spread is too uneven, yet unexpecialized. Generaly, it is hard to notice a raise or drop of 2 or 3 points in a stat. For a MC frontliner Priest, I suggest:

 

15 MIG

10 CON

14 DEX (can't waste half the fight pre-buffing)

10 PER (accuracy is easy to buff with talents and spells)

15 INT

14 RES (at the beginning of White March there is an Ogre boss that drops a ring that gives +3 RES, which is enough for the most relevant and useful RES interaction I've seem: convincing a Dragon to negotiate.)

 

EDIT: but I am glad you liked how your Priest turned out!

Edited August 8, 2016 by DreamWayfarer

[Abel]

 

I'm no good at min maxing. And i can't come up with optimal attributes. But if your character is a male, i would go with 18 MIG, 10 CON, 13 DEX, 12 PER, 14 INT, 11 RES. Or something along these lines. Boeroer should have better ideas though.

 

EDIT: though, in conversation, where only your character can talk, PER, INT and RES are the most usefull. MIG, CONS and DEX are better used in scripted interactions. But in these interactions, any character can do the job, which is not the case in conversations.

I think your stat spread is too uneven, yet unexpecialized. Generaly, it is hard to notice a raise or drop of 2 or 3 points in a stat. For a MC frontliner Priest, I suggest:

 

15 MIG

10 CON

14 DEX (can't waste half the fight pre-buffing)

10 PER (accuracy is easy to buff with talents and spells)

15 INT

14 RES (at the beginning of White March there is an Ogre boss that drops a ring that gives +3 RES, which is enough for the most relevant and useful RES interaction I've seem: convincing a Dragon to negotiate.)

 

EDIT: but I am glad you liked how your Priest turned out!

 

 

 

Yeah, your attribute distribution looks really better than mine. My problem is that i feel like everything is important for a melee priest and i tend to be unable to choose which attributes i should raise :D. And it's true that a few accuracy points (PER) don't matter this much later on. Though, there are quite a lot of dialogue options where you need up to 17 PER to qualify i guess.

[Slack83er]

From what you all are writing to me, I understand firstly and foremost not to spread my points too thin, or else I'll end up like a jack of all trades and master of none. I'll try to start with ranged, and switch to melee later. What should I use as a spell to buff my cleric in the first levels? My perception will be low so I won't hit that much... Should I remain elven maybe wood elf for more accuracy while ranged? Or shall I go Moon Godlike for augmented healing all play long? When you all start to share your knowledge I feel very frustrated as I don't know much of this game, forgive me...

[Abel]

I'm still spending hours doing researchs on the game :D. The start of the game is probably the hardest part i think. Up until Defiance Bay maybe. Which include Gilded Vale (temple of Eothas and Raedric Hold), and liberating Caed Nua. I guess your race is up to you. I don't think that either choice will have enough incidence to change things at the start completely. The start of the game is hard,  which is why getting companions soon is important. Wood Elves have a distant advantage, and i suppose it works with offensive spells too (though most priest spells have low range, and distant advantage works for 4m or more, if i remember well). Pale elves have the fire and cold resistances, which are not used this often but can be useful in some occurences, like against drakes (which can be tough opponents at first). Each race has its advantages.

 

Talking about knowledge, since you're playing priest, the affliction mechanics are somewhat core in combat. Understandings of these things may be important. It took me a while and i'm still not completely familiar with all this stuff. But the good thing is if you're playing in normal, a shallow understanding should be enough most of the time. Like in "Ouh! my fighter have 3 bad afflictions, let's suppress them"

[Slack83er]

I understand you but... is the start of the game supposed to be hard even in EASY difficulty? I tried my priest and I died during the very prologue... I'm not that bad at rpgs, I've been playing since baldur's gate.... the old version! I dunno, it seems that every choice I make I keep doing something wrong...

[Abel]

You should have Calisca in the prologue, who is a fighter. And another one later on. If you use Calisca to tank the ennemies, if you flank the ennemies in order to decrease their deflection, concentrate on killing as fast as possible one after another, this should be feasible. But don't worry. The prologue is quite hard. I died too in my playthrough. You probably just need to get used to things. If you're a priest, maybe spells like armor of faith could help. And blessing (for the +5 accuracy). Since you don't have many spells to cast yet, probably these group, long term buffs are the best options at start.

[Slack83er]

I tried to do as you say, Calisca surely helps... but casting a spell is very loong... by the time I do it Calisca just went on to the next objective... I practically either die or do nothing... I always miss and if I hit, i do like... 5 dmg.... something is wrong...

[Climhazzard]

From what you all are writing to me, I understand firstly and foremost not to spread my points too thin, or else I'll end up like a jack of all trades and master of none. I'll try to start with ranged, and switch to melee later. What should I use as a spell to buff my cleric in the first levels? My perception will be low so I won't hit that much... Should I remain elven maybe wood elf for more accuracy while ranged? Or shall I go Moon Godlike for augmented healing all play long? When you all start to share your knowledge I feel very frustrated as I don't know much of this game, forgive me...

 

Every attribute is important for every build if you aren't min/maxing.  Straight 13 would be fine, I'll illustrate for your priest.

 

Might:  Improves all forms of damage you'll do and makes your heals more powerful, helps you resist fortitude based status effects that could otherwise lead to your death such as prone.

 

Constitution:  Improves overall survivability by giving you more health and endurance, helps you resist fortitude based status effects.

 

Dexterity:  Helps you cast and attack faster, reduces recovery times (I think) so you can react to situations faster.  Improves your defense against reflex based effects such as dragon breath attacks.

Perception:  Helps your offensive spells and attacks hit.  Improves your defense against reflex based effects.

 

Intelligence:  Improves the duration of your spells.  Improves defense against will based attacks and effects, such as stun, paralyze, and dominate.

 

Resolve:  Improves deflection, therefore survival against physical attacks.  Improves concentration, so it's easier to cast spells without getting interrupted.  Improves defense against will based attacks and effects.

 

The best attribute to minimize is probably perception, since devotions of the faithful (tier 4 priest spell) adds 20 accuracy, and before you get that inspiring radiance adds 10 accuracy, blessing adds 5 or 6.

 

You could also drop constitution/resolve if you play entirely in the backlines...  but I already know you don't want to do that, so for your priest every attribute is important, and 13 across the board would actually work fine if you didn't need higher intelligence/resolve for conversation options.  The scores that DreamWayfarer suggested should actually work really well for your purposes.

[Climhazzard]

I tried to do as you say, Calisca surely helps... but casting a spell is very loong... by the time I do it Calisca just went on to the next objective... I practically either die or do nothing... I always miss and if I hit, i do like... 5 dmg.... something is wrong...

 

Nothing is wrong, you are a level 1 priest and Calisca is a warrior who has higher base deflection and accuracy scores suited for fighting on the frontlines, just cast blessing (increases your accuracy/damage) before fighting, or let Calisca do the work since that's what she's there for.

[Abel]

I tried to do as you say, Calisca surely helps... but casting a spell is very loong... by the time I do it Calisca just went on to the next objective... I practically either die or do nothing... I always miss and if I hit, i do like... 5 dmg.... something is wrong...

 

Be careful with the IA. Either you have to tune it according to your playstyle, or cut it. There are people who use it and tune it. Personally i stop it completely. I like to control my goons so that i can choose everything they do. Don't forget to over use the pause, obviously. Like in BG.

[Slack83er]

I'd like to be versatile, and be able to stay either front or back where the situation requires it. i tried playing a wood elf with a bow, and he was kind of a sniper. Hi damage, hi chance to hit... I'm missing the front part... flail or mace do poor damage, two handed weapons get me killed...