Oh, Priest wherefore art thou?

[Christliar]

They said they are going to give spellcasters the ability to choose more spells. I also don't think it's a bug that the passive abilities don't show up, Priests just don't have passive talents. Or maybe it is a bug, who knows. They need to either bring back the general talents (and add more of them) or give all classes more class-specific talents. Single-class Priests now are just a gimped version of what they were in P1.

[PugPug]

The priest seems pretty important so far on the beta; the default party comes with a Berath priest and he's very useful.

 

 

 

This is like a custom adventurer for the beta, not a companion or sidekick, right?

[Ganrich]

 

The priest seems pretty important so far on the beta; the default party comes with a Berath priest and he's very useful.

 

 

This is like a custom adventurer for the beta, not a companion or sidekick, right?

Yeah. Beta party is filled by a generic fighter, rogue, wizard, and priest. No real companions.

[dam]

 

 

The priest seems pretty important so far on the beta; the default party comes with a Berath priest and he's very useful.

 

This is like a custom adventurer for the beta, not a companion or sidekick, right?

Yeah. Beta party is filled by a generic fighter, rogue, wizard, and priest. No real companions.

 

Well to be fair, it's more of a balance issue really.

 

You get a tank, a healer/support, a high single target dps (lol penetration), and an aoe damage (lol penetration as well)/crowd control.

 

 

They're merely tools to support your PC.

 

 

Edit: forgot the lol mention on the rogue "high dps" :D

Edited November 21, 2017 by dam

[Gyg]

No Suppress Afflictions for priest of Eothas? Bummer! I knew that protection ban will be painful. Still don't get why the most benevolent god has it banned.

[dam]

No Suppress Afflictions for priest of Eothas? Bummer! I knew that protection ban will be painful. Still don't get why the most benevolent god has it banned.

 

There are a couple things to keep in mind, lore-wise :

 

First, Eothas got rekt in an explosion, so while flames are the domain of Magran, the guy kinda has a theme going for him :D

Second, Eothas got rekt in an explosion, so whi...

[Gromnir]

 

I mean, this above ain't exactly making a CRPGer drool. Right now the only word I can describe single class priest choices with, qualitywise and quantitywise, is "snorefest".

 

even before the beta release, Gromnir were concerned 'bout priests.  mandatory school prohibitions coupled with anemic spell catalogs were meaning the functional choices after level-up were near non-existent.  likely gonna eventual pick two of three or four total possibilities, and a few o' the choices is highly situational. won't see much difference 'tween ten different priest o' eothas as built by ten random players.   

 

still, spells seeming to be replicated in the priestly spell catalog is not as the editorialized picture would suggest.  'cause o' affliction tiers, am suspecting a number o' priest spells will be getting repeat performances beyond what we has seen thus far. the priest is clear the most straightforward affliction killer in the game.  face a foe who spams tier 2 might afflictions and first thing the priest should do is lay down a tier two might inspiration... or tier 1 if the entire party is the coastal aumaua.

 

on the positive end o' the spectrum is priestly heal kewlness, which is far more significant in deadfire than poe 'cause o' the change to health/endurance. like or hate the health change, heals is more significant in deadfire. priestly heals is, for the most part, fired off instantaneous... which is huge. not need be concerned 'bout concentration if you is gonna use heals. 

 

the spiritual weapons appear to be an attractive nuisance or a trap spell.  seems useful 'pon reading as such scale and have powerful lash, but unless something changes, most such weapons is penetration weak.  there is considerable reason to avoid such weapon choices at the moment... though will see how announces upcoming penetration changes impact. 

 

regardless, the post level-1 customization options  for a priest, other than skill choices, is most limited to their spell choices, and with compulsory school prohibitions, a priest gets far fewer choices per ability level than the other casters. a few o' the spell choices is stuff nobody would/should take so is even fewer functional choices. many folks complain (a bit unfair) 'bout the customization options o' deadfire fighters or paladins, but is priests who is getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

 but priests are getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop.

 

 

My lollipop metafor for priest would be one dropped lint-coated lollipop caught in a God-forsaken sofa crack.

[Gromnir]

 

 

 but priests are getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop.

 

 

My lollipop metafor for priest would be one dropped lint-coated lollipop caught in a God-forsaken sofa crack.

 

is clear the developers believe the fanbase desire for more customization as a whole is a bit illusory as their announced fix is to provide weapon-based powha via proficiency increases.   am genuine hopeful such a fix does not result in less motivation to improve specific classes such as the priest.  the universal talents folks demanded is offered up like john the baptist's head does little to improve the priest situation. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

No Suppress Afflictions for priest of Eothas? Bummer! I knew that protection ban will be painful. Still don't get why the most benevolent god has it banned.

I kinda get it from a lore perspective but it'll be a royal pain if the Priest Companion has the same restriction; from what I understand she's supposed to be an eothas worshipper and that's a really harsh limitation.

 

Mechanically right now it looks like the "best" option is a priest of Wael, but it's hard to say definitely and I haven't play tested.

[cheesevillain]

Is Eothas god of death now?  

 

I think he's always meant to be one, actually, as a counterpart to Berath. They both look after the cycle of life and death, so both are gods of life and death, after a fashion. Also, according to the Guidebook Gaun goes around "reaping" people he thinks have lived long enough.

 

 

No Suppress Afflictions for priest of Eothas? Bummer! I knew that protection ban will be painful. Still don't get why the most benevolent god has it banned.

Perhaps because he's also a Old Testament style destructive and judgmental god who led his most devoted worshippers into a gruelling war that broke two nations. He can be described as benevolent, but he's not a not just a straightforward lawful good god of righteousness and good feels.

 

Btw, Eothasian priests can suppress afflictions by applying inspirations.

 

The priest classes are so different from the others in customization and playability that I can only think they're unfinished. And the devs are probably getting the message, because I haven't seen a single positive statement about the priest class anywhere on these forums yet.

[Gromnir]

 

No Suppress Afflictions for priest of Eothas? Bummer! I knew that protection ban will be painful. Still don't get why the most benevolent god has it banned.

I kinda get it from a lore perspective but it'll be a royal pain if the Priest Companion has the same restriction; from what I understand she's supposed to be an eothas worshipper and that's a really harsh limitation.

 

Mechanically right now it looks like the "best" option is a priest of Wael, but it's hard to say definitely and I haven't play tested.

 

enoch hazarded a guess regarding the companion priest which sounded plausible.  no school prohibitions-- gaun worshiper gets to be the sole generalist priest.  irrespective o' lore, allow the companion to be a generalist with no prohibitions makes gameplay sense. am thinking o' dualing her into a priest/monk regardless. 

 

as an aside, a pc wood elf helwalker priest o' whatever is more effective than we first suspected.  helwalkers typical see kinda dramatic might increases which has a considerable impact on priestly heals and holy radiance burn to say nothing o' damage spells.  helwalkers tend to suffer more damage, but this shortcoming is largely countered by the incredible heals the multi-class can generate... insta heals. a wood elf self buffing with the monky quick inspiration from flurry talent will never suffer paralysis, and most other afflictions can be addressed with inspirations as 'posed to protection spells if you wanna go with eothas as your patron to get the firebrand and chunkify weak mobs. 

 

given how poorly understood is afflictions and counters, priest potential is being underutilized and underappreciated. even so, other than skill choices, there isn't much to do with a single-class priest after level 1.  too bad. waste o' a interesting class.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[CottonWolf]

I feel like Eothas has traded in the upstanding parts of his portfolio for those more vengeful in nature.

 

If you read the in game books, Eothas has always been more of a healing and vengeance god. He's never been down with passive things like defence, he's all action and reaction.

 

Edit: Completely missed the second page.

Edited November 22, 2017 by CottonWolf

[Boeroer]

am genuine hopeful such a fix does not result in less motivation to improve specific classes such as the priest. the universal talents folks demanded is offered up like john the baptist's head does little to improve the priest situation.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Oh, hopefully not! They should def. add more stuff to casters. Not only spells but also some passives. Why not reintroduce stuff like Inspiring Radiance and such? Or "severe punishment" which will make punishment spells more powerful - whatever. Something that makes sense. Edited November 22, 2017 by Boeroer

[dunehunter]

Maybe also something similar to Metamagic in D&D?? Empower Spell which take higher level slot for more power level, or Quicken Spell to shorten cast time.

Edited November 22, 2017 by dunehunter

[Boeroer]

Too complicated and too much work I guess. A few passives are easy to code and don't need UI changes (only an icon and an entry in the combat log). So it's more likely that those get implemented.

[White Phoenix]

Th

 

 

Is Eothas god of death now?  

 

I think he's always meant to be one, actually, as a counterpart to Berath. They both look after the cycle of life and death, so both are gods of life and death, after a fashion. Also, according to the Guidebook Gaun goes around "reaping" people he thinks have lived long enough.

 

 

No Suppress Afflictions for priest of Eothas? Bummer! I knew that protection ban will be painful. Still don't get why the most benevolent god has it banned.

Perhaps because he's also a Old Testament style destructive and judgmental god who led his most devoted worshippers into a gruelling war that broke two nations. He can be described as benevolent, but he's not a not just a straightforward lawful good god of righteousness and good feels.

 

Btw, Eothasian priests can suppress afflictions by applying inspirations.

 

The priest classes are so different from the others in customization and playability that I can only think they're unfinished. And the devs are probably getting the message, because I haven't seen a single positive statement about the priest class anywhere on these forums yet.

 

This. That's why I never understand favored behaviours for him: Benevolent and Honest. Maybe Honest is right (in Eothasian Prayer there is a fragment when he would burn you if you work in hidden or shady ways). But Benevolent? I think Passionate suits him better. Even in POE1 if you play as priest of Eothas your specific dialogues often have Passionate tag. Benevolent always sounds more Hylean to me. 

 

And some Eothas' domains changed in deity description in character creation 

 

I agree priest classes feel unfinished for now. I think the best is Berath as it is the most similar to priest from POE1. Tried to play Magran. It was meh because I didn't know you needed high perception and dexterity for good accuracy and shorter casting times for battle spells   Also no healing.

Edited November 22, 2017 by White Phoenix

[Juodas Varnas]

They should really just give back all the Priest spell schools to all the deities... Such restrictions just aren't fun, soooo why not instead of restricting certain spells from certain Priests, we would EMPOWER certain spells? Like Eothas priests would have better healing spells (like maybe all the burst heal spells could leave a lingering Healing over time effect), while Magran priests could have some sort of extra damage buff on their spells, while Skaen could have extra Damage over Time on their damaging spells, et cetera.

 

I think that'd be much more interesting and wouldn't turn the entire class into complete garbage like the current system.

[morhilane]

They should really just give back all the Priest spell schools to all the deities... Such restrictions just aren't fun, soooo why not instead of restricting certain spells from certain Priests, we would EMPOWER certain spells? Like Eothas priests would have better healing spells (like maybe all the burst heal spells could leave a lingering Healing over time effect), while Magran priests could have some sort of extra damage buff on their spells, while Skaen could have extra Damage over Time on their damaging spells, et cetera.

 

I think that'd be much more interesting and wouldn't turn the entire class into complete garbage like the current system.

The restriction exist to pay for getting sub-class bonuses...and you are asking to remove it to add even more bonuses?

 

lol

[Juodas Varnas]

 

They should really just give back all the Priest spell schools to all the deities... Such restrictions just aren't fun, soooo why not instead of restricting certain spells from certain Priests, we would EMPOWER certain spells? Like Eothas priests would have better healing spells (like maybe all the burst heal spells could leave a lingering Healing over time effect), while Magran priests could have some sort of extra damage buff on their spells, while Skaen could have extra Damage over Time on their damaging spells, et cetera.

 

I think that'd be much more interesting and wouldn't turn the entire class into complete garbage like the current system.

The restriction exist to pay for getting sub-class bonuses...and you are asking to remove it to add even more bonuses?

 

lol

 

Well, since unlike the Wizard, there is no "NO SUBCLASS" option, so what the hell am i paying for with those bloody restrictions?

[morhilane]

 

 

They should really just give back all the Priest spell schools to all the deities... Such restrictions just aren't fun, soooo why not instead of restricting certain spells from certain Priests, we would EMPOWER certain spells? Like Eothas priests would have better healing spells (like maybe all the burst heal spells could leave a lingering Healing over time effect), while Magran priests could have some sort of extra damage buff on their spells, while Skaen could have extra Damage over Time on their damaging spells, et cetera.

 

I think that'd be much more interesting and wouldn't turn the entire class into complete garbage like the current system.

The restriction exist to pay for getting sub-class bonuses...and you are asking to remove it to add even more bonuses?

 

lol

 

Well, since unlike the Wizard, there is no "NO SUBCLASS" option, so what the hell am i paying for with those bloody restrictions?

 

There are sub-classes, it's the god selection. The spell category restriction is in exchange of having a free bonus spell (Eothas gets Firebrand and Sundeam for example) at chosen levels and I guess some themed god spells, like the weapon summon (which deal good damage, well the Berath's greatsword does at least).

 

The Priest class does feel unfinished though. When Josh said he "trimmed" the class of redundancy I wasn't expect it to means he "gutted" the class.

[Juodas Varnas]

 

 

 

They should really just give back all the Priest spell schools to all the deities... Such restrictions just aren't fun, soooo why not instead of restricting certain spells from certain Priests, we would EMPOWER certain spells? Like Eothas priests would have better healing spells (like maybe all the burst heal spells could leave a lingering Healing over time effect), while Magran priests could have some sort of extra damage buff on their spells, while Skaen could have extra Damage over Time on their damaging spells, et cetera.

 

I think that'd be much more interesting and wouldn't turn the entire class into complete garbage like the current system.

The restriction exist to pay for getting sub-class bonuses...and you are asking to remove it to add even more bonuses?

 

lol

 

Well, since unlike the Wizard, there is no "NO SUBCLASS" option, so what the hell am i paying for with those bloody restrictions?

 

There are sub-classes, it's the god selection. The spell category restriction is in exchange of having a free bonus spell (Eothas gets Firebrand and Sundeam for example) at chosen levels and I guess some themed god spells, like the weapon summon (which deal good damage, well the Berath's greatsword does at least).

 

The Priest class does feel unfinished though. When Josh said he "trimmed" the class of redundancy I wasn't expect it to means he "gutted" the class.

 

I'd rather get the rest of the Priest spells than some random spells from another class that barely, if at all, fit the Priest class...

[tinysalamander]

 

 

 

They should really just give back all the Priest spell schools to all the deities... Such restrictions just aren't fun, soooo why not instead of restricting certain spells from certain Priests, we would EMPOWER certain spells? Like Eothas priests would have better healing spells (like maybe all the burst heal spells could leave a lingering Healing over time effect), while Magran priests could have some sort of extra damage buff on their spells, while Skaen could have extra Damage over Time on their damaging spells, et cetera.

 

I think that'd be much more interesting and wouldn't turn the entire class into complete garbage like the current system.

The restriction exist to pay for getting sub-class bonuses...and you are asking to remove it to add even more bonuses?

 

lol

 

Well, since unlike the Wizard, there is no "NO SUBCLASS" option, so what the hell am i paying for with those bloody restrictions?

 

There are sub-classes, it's the god selection.

 

“No ‘no subclass’”, not “no subclass”.

 

And those free bonus spells are kinda… not for everyone. You can’t choose what you get. I’m not sure I want more fire spells even if some of those happen to be somewhat good, I’ve got enough of them already as a priest.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Yep, I reckon Gromnir and heaps of other peeps are in for a treat. I love how responsive Obsidian are, and I like the solutions they concoct:

 

Priests have now passed their theology exams, and are ready to go adventuring with the other classes: https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/933394936837259264

Edited November 22, 2017 by IndiraLightfoot

[cheesevillain]

This. That's why I never understand favored behaviours for him: Benevolent and Honest. Maybe Honest is right (in Eothasian Prayer there is a fragment when he would burn you if you work in hidden or shady ways). But Benevolent? I think Passionate suits him better. Even in POE1 if you play as priest of Eothas your specific dialogues often have Passionate tag. Benevolent always sounds more Hylean to me. 

 

 

Hey, we haven't actually met the guy, yet.

 

And although Hylea's priests definitely would have benevolent as a disposition, do you remember how she talked to Pallegina in the first game? That was (unintentionally, I think) really cruel. Gods have very different perspectives from mortals.

 

 

And some Eothas' domains changed in deity description in character creation  

 

Already, from the beta, it looks like we're going to see new sides to all the gods.

Edited November 22, 2017 by cheesevillain