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Comments
The way I see it, things can go in one of two ways. Either we set definitive roles for the classes and stick to those roles or we try to make the classes as similar as possible. As long as I've been playing, people thought of mystic as the class people brought along when they knew the mechanics, didn't think they'd need extra healing, and wanted to pump out a bit more DPS instead. Priests were the ones they brought when they wanted a safer run with cushy heals/shields and the like. If we want to cement mystic as the high risk high reward damage support class, and priests as the safety net healer class (this is what I think should happen; not this move to make the classes really similar. If I wanted to run around out of combat and use auras I'd main my mystic), then a few changes need to be made to the game as a whole. I hope to outline some of them in this post, but it's 2 am so forgive me if [filtered]'s all over the place.
First off, STOP introducing classes that are really easy to play. Do you really think, with so many people playing ninja -- a class with five invulnerability frames on short cooldowns -- that anyone's gonna see the benefit in a priest's bigger heals? Of course not. They'll opt for more crits in all but the most punishing and severe of situations. I mean for god's sake, giving ninjas smokebomb was like giving them a better kaias shield. Same with how gunner and reaper could cheese mechanics with their iframes and survive one shots with their cheat death mechanics. The more cushiony you make your new classes, the less likely they'll want or need a class like priest that is designed to help keep them alive in the first place. It's the same with dungeons. You introduced DF and then you nerfed it into the ground and turned it into a joke. No one's gonna care about having kaias when they can facetank the laser without kaias and live since you nerfed it. It's stupid. So change that. Make the dungeons have mechanics that people want protection against, and you increase the value of a healer who specializes in big heals. Make nine out of ten dungeons a walk in the park while buffing everyone simultaneously, and you make them scoff at a priest's protection since they won't need it.
Second, change the skills of both classes to reflect their solidified priorities: Mystic, prioritizing dps first and healing output second, and priests prioritizing healing output first and dps assistance second. Crit factor is huge in this game, so giving mystics a buff that directly affects crit factor is a big deal. I have no problem with this if mystics are meant to be a damage support class first, and a healer second. But if that's the case, then something has to give in terms of healing output. I'd call for a trade of sorts. Give mystics triple nemesis since its endurance debuff is higher by 1%, and give priests volley since it's a lower debuff by 1% but has the safety net of being twice as long. Give priests vow of resurrection since being able to auto-res your teammates is safer, and give mystics grace of resurrection since the extra damage boost they provide their team shouldn't also come with an auto-res safety net; it's overkill. I could go on with this but you get my point, right? The goal is to solidify mystics as a class that empowers the team first, and heals them second, while a priest would be the exact opposite.
(The ressing situation is really bad by the way. On my priest when someone dies, I've gotta basically juggle two tasks: ressing and rebuffing the fallen, who might have died really far out if he's a ranged player who doesn't know what he's doing, and keeping the rest of the team alive while I'm busy. All of this while working with half my MP since ressing and rebuffing costs a lot. When someone dies on my mystic, I don't have to do *anything* because they have vow on them and they just get up on their own. I don't even have to buff. In this regard, the roles feel reversed. The one who specializes in healing shouldn't have to deal with so much crap every time someone dies, while the one who specializes in dps support first, healing second, shouldn't have such an easy time when someone dies. Every time mystics complain about a slower res, I can't help but feel like it's moot since nine times out of ten when someone dies I don't have to do jack [filtered].)
I'd get into how having 100% passive uptime on one of your best party buffs is stupidly OP, or how dumb it is that a priest's buffs can work alongside a mystic's auras without the priest being in the party, but that's all been said already. I'm not sure what to do about the buff situation. I LIKE being able to buff people and send them off to do solo content like iod or whatever. I don't want that to go away. I feel like the only way to balance that issue (of people taking buffs from a priest bot and then grabbing a mystic) is to make titanic wrath overwrite shakan when a priest isn't in the party.
Lastly, don't make duo healing obsolete. We've already got this ridiculous healer surplus now that you've made mystics RIDICULOUS in pve. The only time I play my priest nowadays is when I've either assembled the group myself, or when I'm in a group with two healers in it. Any other time I'm on my DPS or something. It's really bad. Odds are BHS will [filtered] up the new healer revamp even worse and just tip the scales in favor of one class while totally screwing over another. Only instead of the situation being mitigated by people going "hey let's just bring both," instead they'll just take the current Flavor of the Month. I think attitudes among members of both classes will be fine no matter how things turn out, if at the end of the day we're able to just take both without a massive hit to overall DPS.
I'll end with a disclaimer: I have both a mystic and a priest. I play them both at about the same rate nowadays, so I'm not some loyalist priest main with an axe to grind or something, and I'm not a bitter mystic who's gonna sip priest tears either. I just think if we're gonna bother having two healers in the first place, then they shouldn't be carbon copies of each other, nor should one render the other redundant every time an attempt is made to balance them. This is a great thread for discussion, but it stops being good when mystics post pictures of priest tears in a coffee mug while flippantly throwing out some point about how "X has been better for ages, it's Y's turn!" demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of the point of this thread, which is a call for actual balance.
Addendum: If you want to talk about ways to make the classes more similar, it's much simpler. All you have to do is make titanic wrath overwrite shakans and balders to prevent the buffbot situation. Then just give triple nemesis a crit resist debuff on its third shot, allowing party members to crit more often like they would with a crit aura. In my opinion this just makes both classes feel redundant and begs the question of why we have two healers to begin with, but this solution is far simpler and is probably what we'll end up getting if I had to bet money on it. kTera talents already has some version of this anyway, where triple nem is concerned, so it's not a stretch.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: This is the absolute WORST idea ever. We had that situation in MC HM. Do you know what the vast majority of people did? They lured a priest in for the training runs, had that priest wipe with them for hours at a time, spending money on consumables. Once they got the hang of the dungeon and it was time for it to start paying off, they simply replaced the priest with a mystic. If they establish priests as defensive healers and mystics as offensive healers, we'd be right back there. Many skilled priests who'd helped numerous people learn the dungeon yet can't get a smooth run for days, weeks even, because the people who can do smooth runs would rather take a mystic.
That'd be bloody brilliant in raids. "Oh, smth happened and ES was down for 0.5 sec, TW took over and now nobody's got priest buffs" or even "Oh, the mystic turned on crit aura before the fight started and boom go the buffs".
You can have 2 classes be equally useful while having different playstyles. How would that change to TN make the playstyle more similar? It wouldn't. It'd just change the outcome, not the journey.
All these QQs from Priest players, yet there is already future plans to buff Priests to make them "relevant" again. Not that they aren't relevant to begin with, but well...there will always be that one person.
That does sound pretty bad. The idea of bringing a priest for painful learning runs and then swapping them out for a mystic later is something I hated the idea of, and complained about often in other posts ... but with all the protection priests offer it's easy to come up with ways to make their extra protective playing style even with mystics' damage enhancing. Like, I mentioned how dungeons ought to first have mechanics that warrant a priest's protection if we're to keep priests useful. In my ideal world, those same dungeons might have really dangerous mechanics that anyone would have to stop and take time to avoid regardless of skill level. One shot lasers, cage phases that do massive flat damage, that kind of thing. Now imagine if we buffed kaias to either let it offset more damage in pve, or act like ninja's smoke bomb to straight up ignore mechanics for a few seconds. If having a priest's protection meant dps could ignore deadly mechanics and keep dps'ing, then priests could fit their designated cushy-support role while still being kind of on par in the "I help my party dps" factor that mystics have going for them. Such a change would force even skilled players to stop and think for a minute before they make a knee [filtered] reaction and grab a mystic. Then of course you have mystics who would already have an army of dps support skills at their disposal, so that a few seconds of invulnerability might seem moot in comparison to what they have to offer. The point is that it stops becoming a simple issue and turns into a debate over which class is more useful in certain situations.
I meant titanic wrath would overwrite shakans/balders if a priest weren't in the party. I mentioned that more specifically in my post at another point, but I should've written it again there to be more clear.
While the playstyle would be different, you'd just end up with two classes serving the exact same function. Both can heal pretty well. Both can give their parties crits. Both have endurance debuffs that are nearly identical. Both have a party buff. I get that some people don't have an issue with that, but to me it begs the question of why we have two healer classes in the first place since BHS can't balance them out, won't settle on separate roles for them, and seems content to slowly make them identical in terms of purpose. Making them ultra similar only invites room for comparison, which is how we get "X is objectively better than Y, so let's bring X." But introducing incomparable elements, like the example I rattled off earlier about kaias as both a protective element and a dps enabler, while mystic offers multiple dps enabling buffs, has two functions: first, it gives both classes their own primary role, and second it invites room for thought and debate depending on the dungeon and the various situations and the overall skill of the party.
There shouldn't be a primary healer in the first place, it's the whole reason this imbalance exists. Honestly, at least 'on paper', both classes seem at least somewhat balanced to me. The only complain I would have is the MP mote regen, although some may argue it's essential due to the fact we are constantly draining MP with our two active auras. However, due to the way combat works, crit is favored more than power - and it is what makes some classes prefer mystics over priests.
I also don't think priests have slow animations. When I am on priest, I feel much faster than my mystic and my attack speed would be at least 15-20 less than my mystic. Let's not forget that their resurrection and regeneration circle (although ultimately useless to some) can be even faster with noctenium.
Still, many priests are unhappy and it was brought up in some QA thing created for the Nexon GMs and the TERA developers. So according to Idi0ticGenius, there will be changes regarding bugs existing on energy stars, imbalance, and they will reduce dual-healer capability:
July — Sorcerer Revamp + Healer Adjustments
Healer Adjustments include
Priest’s Energy star bug.
Eliminating disparity due to Mystic being more favored.
Double Healer parties will be discouraged (Double healer party will be adjusted so that it is less efficient than Single Healer party.)
Not sure if it was mentioned before and it probably has been, but it doesn't hurt to mention again. Expect some changes.
One of the changes I'd like, however, is to give priests an ultimate skill where after like a 1-10 second animation, they could resurrect everyone within a 30m radius. Maybe it could be a chargeable skill that depending how long you charge it, the MP/HP of party members restores to a certain percent, and full charge is 100%. I don't see it as OP, since priests are already capable of resurrecting everyone when they are the only ones alive. To balance it though, maybe it should have somewhat a high CD like 5-10 minutes.
This would only fix the whole "carry" issue but not the idea where mystics are more preferred over priests after learning times are over. Maybe they could increase the duration of Energy Stars, and give mystics some sort of stances where some of their skills, whether it be offensive or defensive, are disabled or get weaker depending on what stance they have activated (or what skills they have been using the most).
Have to quote this post. This man say it perfectly. I was trully angry when I first started this threat, so I apologises for saying priests are a useless class.
But, really need to be balanced. If the Priest is the Priamry healer then HE AND ONLY HE needs to heals a loooooot En Masse, a looot!! did you hear me? HE IS THE PRIMARY HEALER, not a [filtered] healer. Read the Void's post please, it says everything better than me. Isn't about to equal classes is about to play a trully role-playing game man that's all. Why you are converting mystics as superhealers? even SSHM can be done with only a mystic in the party, that's too ridiculous man: what's the point of being "the primary healer". Guardian sanctuary takes years for casting it!!! when a priest finish to cast that skill he's already dead, is like WTF. The mp regen of Mana charge is a joke i can't keep up the mp of the trully action combat dps classes not even with restorative burst gliphed.
BTW EN MASSE CHANGE CONTAGION FROM THE PRIEST GUIDE OF YOURS, Contagion isn't a Priest' skill. Jesus... nice job... I bettr shut up.
1. People have been very good at finding ways to by-pass such mechanics on their own.
2. 20sec cd party invulnerability skill? Does that only sound ridiculously OP to me?
I'm not sure the game has class detection mechanics in the party system.
If you make the mechanics of the classes too different, it becomes extremely hard to balance them. Then somebody does the math and everybody jumps on the fotm healer. And, sometimes they are very wrong. But since the majority of players wouldn't go through the trouble of fiduring it out themselves, they/we will just blindly follow that guy and...nothing much has changed. If you make them similar enough, you allow people to play the class they like the playstyle of the class they like without being a burden/unwanted/abused/etc.
Btw, you know that's how roles work, right? You have multiple classes within the role that have different playstyles but the same functions and, when balanced, the same end-result. Why do we have zerks and sorcs and slayers when they all just do damage?
changing the vow with the grace... buffing mana charge... An "ultimate" to priests would be nice... since mystics have their super pet, priests could use an op skill with high cd.. even tho they already have that ultra self heal....
but i still have NO ideia WHY they want duo heal to end....
In KTera it turns Mystics into actual DPS (due to their talent system), while the priest does most of the healing. I am still pretty sure that they are trying to make healers capable of healing more than 4 other people at one time pretty soon if said mechs are coming.
I don't understand. Do we play the same game? Do you play healers? Can you read?
Yes you did suggest. More healing skills, but nearly all of them underheal Mystic's TF. Priests only outheal when you can stack that repertoire on a person. TF has such a short cd that it is superior. No priest can outheal that with the same amount of time at hand. Plus you can add boomerang.
I am happy that you have a perfect static who you can lazy heal and have fun from 18m, but most of us do not have the luxury of that. And sadly most of the players get hit, quite often, get bad rolls on gear, which makes them get 60% of their health damage. I do not run with the wrong people, as I priest I run with people who take me as they prefer Mystics. But I cannot afford to run with the best of the best. My block list is long enough to keep myself away from toxic parties and yet they still happen.
Yes they are equal as healers, but even the worst party hopes for a godly healing mystic to save them and add more buffs than a priest.
You can't change people who takes the obviously superior buff over more healing repertoire not knowing their limitations and die in the end.
Also buff thralls pve defense, revert the weird camera placement for thrall of vengeance, buff protection's agro so when a mystic is soloing he can actually take agro off you but not so high that in a party he takes it off the tank, and add a de-summon thrall skill.
Also priest mana charge needs a bit of a buff in mp replenishment (or reduce the cooldown) and maybe their mana puddle too.
So their heal got more bursty - big deal! Most decent groups didn't need more burst healing from their Mystic, anyways!
The main problem was removing Titanic Wrath. It made Mystics much easier to play, and thus took a class that was already good in the right hands, and made it easier for just about anyone to play them well.
The difference between a good Mystic and a bad Mystic was HUGE before.
But oh what I wouldn't give to have instant CCs back, as a Mystic! I'd revert back to Mystic skills/glyphs at release, for it!
The sad part, is BHS is just going to buff priest, and make them more the same as a Mystic
Sometimes I wish they would just remove Titanic fervour from Mystic, and make them a DoT/Pet support mage, with limited heals (totem and fairy, and nerfed motes only.)
When it's all said and done, different playstyles is what I'm getting at as well. I see what you're saying, and hell, I don't even disagree with it entirely.
Perhaps my greatest issue is that stuff like a change to triple nemesis allowing for crit resist, fine as it is on paper, is boring and lazy and doesn't take advantage of a priest's many natural defensive capabilities. You'd have to be ignorant to say that there aren't differences between mystics and priests at a fundamental level. Those areas are where, in my opinion, developers should aim their focus. If you want to make priests capable of helping with dps as much as mystics, then FINE, do that, but don't take the easy way out and slap a crit buff on their triple nemesis. Do something that utilizes a priest's wide array of healing/shielding skills instead. I've talked enough about kaias and how it can be buffed to allow for more damage so let's imagine something else. Like, priests have focus heal but it's so bad in comparison to their other heals that they barely use it. So what if a priest uses focus heal and everyone it heals gets a temporary crit factor boost or something. Or their huge healing circle takes time to cast and isn't all that great, but what if everyone caught inside of it got an additional attack speed boost. It's not a perfect idea (nor was the kaias one, admittedly. I come up with these not because I think they're great ideas out of the gate, but as examples illustrating a broader concept) but you can see how that's different from just chucking a crit resist buff onto triple nemesis' third strike, right? My idea works within the priest's role as an expert healer to achieve results on par with its mystic counterpart, while a change to triple nemesis is just an additional boost slapped onto a skill that everyone already uses; it does nothing to solidify the priest's role as the wielder of many heals, and instead just feels like a tacked on way to compete with mystics. Of course this is subjective. You could easily say the same about any of my ideas. I honestly don't care anymore.
That issue aside, it often feels like the developers don't know which way they want to swing on the whole roles issue, which is evidenced by mystics having the ability to auto-res their entire party despite being widely considered as the class that doesn't specialize in healing support. I don't like seeing differences between classes get ironed out, but with the way the game is progressing it seems inevitable. I think that feeling is at the core of most of what I've said so far. Like, I mained zerk over slayer because I liked how sturdy it felt and I enjoyed being able to block. Now my zerk has a roll besides esmash so he can deal with all the mechanics that force him to roll instead of just being allowed to block. I'm rolling a lot these days. When I started this class all I did was block. Frankly, I don't like that BHS's solution to balance is to just make X class more similar to Y, when they should be working within the scope of what made X class different from Y to begin with, in order to fix issues while retaining the elements that made the class so uniquely attractive to its fanbase to begin with. It's the same, I feel, with priests and mystics. Just saying "oh mystic is beloved because it gives crit auras, so let's give priests a crit thingy too" is just making X similar to Y instead of taking time and actually looking at different ways to make priest attractive without just turning it into a super obvious mystic clone or vice versa.