Potential Holy Symbol Changes

[Dusteh]

Right now, Priest seems to be lacking an identity. I believe that this due to the low population of the server causing infrequent parties, and the availability of HS mules (I am not against HS mules). In my opinion, the main upside of playing priest is its efficiency while grinding. However, with the inconsistency of parties, and other classes having the option to mini boss as a significant source of supplemental exp (and mesos), priest is left in an awkward position where it's not the most efficient grinding class, or necessary for party play.

I propose two changes to Holy Symbol which make priests solo play slightly more rewarding and gives parties a benefit to adding them over an HS mule (most parties do this anyway out of kindness, but it isn't always efficient to do so).

1. Give priest more benefit from Holy Symbol while solo. In a high population server this probably wouldn't be necessary, but on Phoenix there aren't consistent parties at all level ranges. I'm not sure if the full 150% would be too OP, but it should at least be 130%. This will make up for priest's lack of flexibility and make doing non heal/holy weak content feel less bad for the player. 

2. Make Holy Symbol provide additional exp (165%?) if the priest is active. There are common situations (like trio skelegons) where adding a priest is less efficient for individual members, and having a priest in a party should never make it worse. This will both provide incentive for people to main priest, and for parties to play with them regardless of composition. Not sure how to code this in to avoid abuse, but I'd imagine that just not being flagged as afk will be good enough. Maybe there is a way to make it flag as long as the priest has killed a mob in the last 15-30 seconds? 

Holy Symbol is the main element in a Priest's toolkit and should be more utilitarian as such. Thoughts?

Edited January 27, 2023 by Dusteh
Forgot a line

[Kradia]

4 hours ago, Dusteh said:

priest is left in an awkward position where it's not the most efficient grinding class, or necessary for party play.

Doesn't have to be the most efficient, it's in the top 3 most efficient classes. You grind for free, you gain exp similar to the other few jobs that are regarded as OP.

5 hours ago, Dusteh said:

or necessary for party play.

It's very necessary for party play and pairs well with every job that doesn't have sustain - you allow them to grind for free. You get quite a lot of heal exp for it too (custom buffed for priest). Another way it's necessary, is that it allows parties to replace the HS mule for potentially more exp.

4 hours ago, Dusteh said:

Give priest more benefit from Holy Symbol while solo. In a high population server this probably wouldn't be necessary, but on Phoenix there aren't consistent parties at all level ranges. I'm not sure if the full 150% would be too OP, but it should at least be 130%.

Priests already gain the best or second best solo exp when they grind in their best exp maps. Just like my job gets the best exp when I grind in my highest exp map. The exp is very comparable to what a Priest gets solo, what a DK would get solo if they were able to afford it and what a Hermit gets solo. You are never going to be able to go to any map and gain the exp that you are gaining at skeles or himes. You think that's how it is for other jobs? Not even close. You kill other shit for drops and you accept the lower exp that comes with it. When is enough going to be enough?

5 hours ago, Dusteh said:

 There are common situations (like trio skelegons) where adding a priest is less efficient for individual members

These situations are rare and usually happen when you're partying players, who have outleveled the area by many levels and clear fast enough to prefer two platforms. Can partly blame the lack of content for that, and partly blame it on the bonus party exp.

5 hours ago, Dusteh said:

and having a priest in a party should never make it worse.

This I agree with. Unfortunately, this is mainly because of the lack of bonus party exp. In a party setting where no HS is available, it's never worth it in terms of exp, to party other players. Not in a duo, trio, 4-man, 5-man, 6-man. 

To paint the picture, if you're in a duo and you are two players of same levels, but two different jobs, one of the jobs will outperform the other. Player A's job might be better suited for that map resulting in more kills over time. Because player A is killing more, player B is essentially leeching more exp, making it worth it for player B, but not worth it for player A. This is entirely because the bonus party exp can't compensate for the difference in kills. This should explain it so anyone can understand:

Spoiler

Player A is a hermit and kills 7 mobs while player B is a Ranger and kills 5 mobs. The exp split is 6:4 and mob exp is 100. The bonus party exp in this scenario is 10%.

Player A:

Killed:
60+6
60+6
60+6
60+6
60+6
60+6
60+6
60+6

Leeched:
40+4
40+4
40+4
40+4
40+4

Resulting in 682 exp in 7 killed and 5 leeched mobs.
If player A was solo and killed 7 mobs, he would've gotten 700 exp. 

Player B:

Killed:
60+6
60+6
60+6
60+6
60+6

Leeched:
40+4
40+4
40+4
40+4
40+4
40+4
40+4

Resulting in 638 exp in 5 killed and 7 leeched mobs.
If player B was solo and killed 5 mobs, he would've gotten 500 exp.
 

So to be able to add more people to a party, and that never being punishing, we need bonus party exp buffed and definitely not HS.

[Rykbi]

I can see the idea behind these proposals, but I would also be wary of a situation where priest solo exp is better than in a party. Buffing HS for the whole party by a decent amount with active priest would definitely have worries of abuse, but arnah already has anti-leech built in to Phoenix now.

I think the issue with priest isn’t our exp/hr necessarily and more of a feeling of being weak, since we are gaining sustainability vs other classes yet doing less DPS. (At higher levels we do get stronger with the exponential magic equation, but it’s definitely highlighted in holy weak maps)

Part of that disparagement I think is that there are so many high level high DPS players that at a map like skelegon a priest that isn’t as high level will not be able to kill remotely as quickly. This causes you to need a dk to duo with if the party wants to keep consistent kill rates in each plat. The way to get past this hump seems to be to level up and close the gap. Bonus exp changes might help with this gap.

As a priest player, I definitely see the benefits of the class but the fact minibossing is so unavailable is a big feeling of missing out sometimes. Having no significant single target damage is definitely the reason, which unfortunately is part of the class.

Kradia has always said that priest isn’t underpowered, he feels if anything it is overpowered. I will admit right now we have one of the best places to be strong, as skelegon is the best place for high exp party play. Before that himes was also a huge increase for best EXP/hr for priests solo or duo compared to what used to be half that at deep ludi. We also are able to farm at a lot of different maps with good mobbing, whereas others excel better at places with spread out monsters or single target.

I think that Kradia’s idea of buffing bonus EXP in parties definitely would incentivize party play more, with less worry of abuse cases but it doesn’t solve the issue of priest feeling like the odd man out when DPS is what is needed.

It feels like if you want to mini boss you need to make a different class for that, it won’t ever be our forte. That’s why a lot of people who have a priest seem to make alt high lvl chars. Priest is at the end of the day the support class that makes money by not needing to burn pots, and is flexible in where they can kill mobs just not as efficiently as at best case maps.