Some thoughts regarding Crusaders

This thread was originally born out of my experiences playing Leilana; she was my second elf armoursmith/behead crusader and I actually managed to hold my own in PK for once (or at least it felt like I did, I think I had a net positive pk score but I can't say for certain).

I for one felt like the class although uniquely designed, feels outdated and a bit clunky. I may have a different mindset than other people, but I do not feel tedium is a good balancing factor when it comes to power level — crusaders, and armoursmiths in particular, invest a lot of tedium to reach their full potential, which then may then be undone if you are killed and looted. I was particularly dedicated to Leilana, and although RL eventually pulled me away from the game, I am fairly certain a loot/sac may have put a significant dent in my motivation to play the character too.

When I look at blademasters (the most 'recently' designed melee class), I just find myself envious in how smooth their gameplay is compared to crusaders. Both classes require preparation and setup, but a crusader is immobile chanting for several ticks, while the blademaster simply has make some weapon/stance/skill choices and are then ready to face their enemy. This is not to say that crusaders are weak (many characters have proved otherwise), just that their design feels outdated and in some cases 'unfun'. My signature skill - 'behead' - is sort of a prime example: it gave one of the most anti-melee geared classes yet another tool that simply makes the crusader excessively frustrating to fight as a melee class, while offering no real benefit  against casters save for an immediate damage burst, after which you are back to meleeing with third attack. Meanwhile, blademasters feel dynamic, reactive, and proactive in their design.  As such, I feel crusaders could be given a facelift; maintaining the class identity and feel without upsetting PK balance is a delicate matter but not an impossible task.

Basically, I feel that crusaders are a bit dated.

Here are some of the thoughts I had while playing my crusader:

• Psalms:

These should not be limited to a set number. The choices made when selecting psalms is restrictive in a way that does not really provide a lot of strategizing or tradeoffs (regardless of the number of psalms available to your crusader, you will always pick the 'best' ones).

• Psalms are exceedingly clunky to use. Not being bloodied to start chanting, several hours of just sitting idle, and cooldowns that often are exceptionally lengthy before you can chant again all contribute to make the class feel lethargic.
• Reworking some psalms into 'hymns', using songs in the way that bards does is an interesting idea I had. I found the notion of a second class utilizing songs (albeit not quite as heavily focused on it as bards) to be quite tantalizing, and hymns sort of fit into the crusader theme.

Damage output/consistency:

• By nature, crusaders have a huge power spike at their endgame. 40 avg damage weapons capable of hitting practically any vuln is just insane, even though the class is limited to third attack. I honestly would not mind seeing crusader weapons scaled back a bit, but then making fourth attack baseline to compensate (blademasters has this as well); this should make the class more consistent, which less of a gap between brand new crusader and fully levelled weapon crusader, while still giving the latter the same average endgame damage output (assuming a middle ground with the numbers can be found).

Crusader crafting:

• I think people are prone to overlook armourcrafting due to some of the upper tier weaponcrafting modifications, but a full set of crusader amrour is beastly, especially now that the equipmet rebalancing has been redone. This is perhaps not a too great of an issue, but I am still convinced that the tedium of crafting needs to be reworked to make the class more accessible and enjoyable to play. I would love to see a crusader crafting system that uses materials in the same way that bards create weapons, with the foundation of items still relying on starstones.
• Create a third path of crafting - 'crusader reliquaries' - including rings, amulets, wrists, and light (seven pieces in total), could bring crusaders up to date with the spellforged system, giving them access to a select list of spellforged items (bless, virtuous light, other holy sort of spells, etc). Going fully into this branch of selectables would be incompatible with the other branches of forging. You would have decently statted trinkets (sort of how armoursmithing goes above average stats on their items), with perhaps a couple of spellforged as the final reward.
• Remove the weapon level limiter on Psalm of Insight. It already takes an immense requirement in term of time to get up in the ranks with this psalm, and the class already has a huge PK focus to incentivize you to grow your weapon through crusades anyway. There are weapon modifications (rank 6 springs to mind; burnproof, nosac, etc) that you need to reach in order to essentially not have your power level reset to zero. I honestly believe Dark-Knights should have failsafes in place to prevent them from dropping levels in Malforms, but I haven't played the class excessively. For these two classes, weapon levels are defining traits of the class designs and dying should be more forgiving on them; knowing you can take a death and not be set back with your weapon should encourage people to engage in PK that is just not preying on fresh level 50s (a bit of a tangent but I wanted to raise this point).
• Make it so conversioned/consecrated items can not be broken down into parts in order to prevent accidental destruction of your crafted items. Allow fully modified items to be stored in stash (they are already nonrare).

Tungerz:

• Make him yell like any other guild guardian when attacked.

Behead:

• Remove behead immunity from mobs that have it. Without being able to reliably blind and only having access to third attack, behead crusaders are notoriously slow at fighting certian mobs. Making all mobs beheadable wouldn't make behead crusaders insanely powerful monster hunters, but just make them less behind other capable classes (rangers, warriors, battlemages, etc). This would not upset PvE balance any more than certain other combinations (looking at you, Heralds).

Witch Compass:

• This is a notoriously bad skill. Many, many people warned me not to pick this skill at all ever because of how bad it is. I would suggest creating a full 'Witch Hunter' path with selectable, with skills like Witch Compass that would be the equivalent of a good-aligned spy (it would only work on crusade targets), Witch's Hammer as a snakespeed or spellkill variant, and perhaps some sort of magic resist power (flat -svs as an ability?). This would be geared  towards fighting communers/casters in the way that the behead path gives bonuses towards fighting melee folks.

I fully appreciate the fact that I am not a veteran PK'er and my understanding of game balance may not be as well-developed a some of the PK'ers around. My idea for changing the crusader class is less about buffs/nerfs and more about making the class feel dynamic and fun to play, making it less tedious and clunky in the areas that currently just seem unfun/punishing.

Please share your criticism, feedback, and your own ideas about the Crusader class!

Thank you!

6 hours ago, Lexi said:

armoursmiths in particular, invest a lot of tedium to reach their full potential, which then may then be undone if you are killed and looted.

Just to add that armorsmiths can make every piece they work on owner only.

This means that they can't be looted because they never leave you.

Armorsmith is one of the most time consuming selections.  @Lexi is right about one part though, for all the investment you spend a TON of time gathering starstone and armor just to craft one set.  ~800 hour on Ihreraeh and I had close to three sets.  I can't agree with decreasing Crusader top end weapon avg. damage though because if they have to put in a lot of effort to get it done in both PK and in gathering materials, for which I think they should be rewarded.  I'd rather see races other than storm giant get a benefit as right now going any other race is lackluster in comparison.  Storm giants get resistance to call lightning, get superior melee, have less to worry about in selections to make up for their weaknesses and can actually lag their opponents well.

9 hours ago, mya said:

Just to add that armorsmiths can make every piece they work on owner only.

This means that they can't be looted because they never leave you.

Ownering crusader items (both the armours and weapons) comes at a fairly large cost in power as you have to sacrifice other strong choices.

EDIT:

My point in regards to crafting (and to some extent psalms) wasn't that it's not strong enough but rather that crusaders (particularly armoursmith crusaders) were designed in a way that sort of requires you to invest massive amount of time just to get to a point where you have unlocked your class's features. There's some systems inherent to the class (forging and psalms, as mentioned) that just are tedious. Yes, people should be rewarded for putting in hard work with their characters, but I am almost certain that if the class had been designed today it would have been done so with the consideration that most players aren't around to invest 8+ hours a day into the game (a bit of hyperbole here).

It's sort of the same when preparing for combat. Crusaders have a fairly narrow window where they can fight an enemy, and then they can fight only that enemy: vuln psalms last for 24 ticks and then there's 16 more ticks before you can chant again (and this isn't even going into being on a crusade against one target and then you have to defend your cabal against another, etc).

I suppose my general feeling wasn't that I strongly want the class toned one way or another (I am not in a position to accurately judge that it would need buffs/nerfs), but rather to have the mechanics inherent to the class looked at and evaluated to make it less clunky/static to play.

Crusaders, much like paladins after a fashion are just one dimensional. Through the years crusaders have declined, the much used crutch that kept them relevant through the years (high sight) kept them competitive though the EQ power creep, Highsight being nerfed again and again taking them a bit out of meta play I would say. Outside of that what do you have as a sader, rush, impale.... you can choose some selections but basically that is it. So then the defensive saders should be good right? Well lejarak  (spelling prob wrong) but AC got nerfed hard, so your hyper def armor crafters really aren't set up beautifully for defense, because the goal post of how much AC you need got moved.

But I remember Shufei, so I dont care to see crusaders great again. lol

I'll offer my own thoughts on this one having played a crusader recently as well.

1. I love your ideas about psalms @Lexi and think there could be a neat middle ground where there is a divergence between "Psalms" and "Hymns". For example:

Hymns:

All vuln psalms

Righteousness

Inner Strength

Divine Void

Final Parting

etc.

Psalms:

Undeniable Order

Inner Peace

etc

Make the psalms - which we want people to use only one of, and with either permanent or long-lasting effect - one at a time.

Then combine Psalm Master and Pious at the specialty level, and make it so that Hymns can be "sung" either one at a time for those that don't make the selection, or in combinations as allowed currently (e.g. you can't combine two vuln hymns, you can't combine final parting and something else, etc.). This allows the mechanical benefits of things like undeniable order or inner peace to support your weapon/playstyle, without requiring the sacrifice of 1) early noremove weapons (inner strength), 2) vulnerability psalms, etc., or 3) psalms that support a crusader's capabilities against their greatest weakness - mages.

1. I agree so so so so so much that too_big should not stop mobs from being beheaded. I absolutely abhorred fighting against raids as my tribbie crusader because I couldn't behead the mobs and even with an average 40 weapon, I could kill maybe 2-3 raiders before I needed to flee and rest, and then the raid was over. (Sub-note - make blood guards assist against raiders!)

2. I personally think that we're going to see a resurgence in armorcrafting crusaders as the equipment balance is completed, because it will basically be an easy replacement for now-weakened armor. I don't think the crafting time should necessarily be shortened, as this is a lynchpin of the crusader's power and should require some work to achieve. The recommendation would obviously be to create a "balanced" set of gear for your first set, and then create a specialty vs melee set and a specialty vs mage set as time and starstone allow.

3. Regarding weapon growth -- You do not need a high level weapon to be successful as a crusader. Just like you do not need a high level malform to be successful as a DK. They are a part of each class' higher power potential, and I don't think we need to do anything to "cheapen" that, so to speak. As a Demon DK (which I played right before my Crusader), I felt fairly competent dual wielding high average damage or vuln weapons, regardless of their being malformed. I would consider that the baseline power level of the class, which is on par with most other races or classes. Where DKs/Crusaders shine however, is that if you put the time, effort, and skill into raising the weapons up... you can ascend to a whole new power level that is measurably better than most classes. And I think that gives people something to work toward.

I think if there is going to be a break between the buff of psalms, VULN should still be a psalm, not a one shot "song". Considering you can take a high avg weapon and "malform" then chant for above avg 27 dmg for a vuln weapon.

45 minutes ago, Atticus said:

I think if there is going to be a break between the buff of psalms, VULN should still be a psalm, not a one shot "song". Considering you can take a high avg weapon and "malform" then chant for above avg 27 dmg for a vuln weapon.

Considering what it takes to get that type of weapon, it should be somewhat around that.  Having a high average vuln weapon is serious firepower, but it also comes at a high cost.  You have to get the pks to get it AND get it to the point where it can't be sacced.  On top of that, you have to sit vulnerable for a time just to chant and find the obelisk to get the psalm, which takes up your psalm slots.

I'm all for making the hymns that are one shot and then last for a shorter amount of time.  1 hour chanting and 9 hours of vuln damage.  But, if that is the case, I wouldn't allow Undeniable Order to be used with that or inner strength.  Have crusaders have to pick between psalms or hymns where psalms have a long lasting affect and hymns a short duration, but never able to use them together unless you pick psalm master and pious.

Overall, I think crusaders are weaker than other melee in against some mage because they are forced to use one two handed weapon only and no duel wielding.  On the flip side, some crusader selections stack damage to an extreme point when combined with a high average damage weapon and high hr/dr, which is why giants seem to do better.  I'm all for making crusaders easier to play and more rewarding as long as it doesn't take what already is the prime crusader and make them even more buff.

idk man, you can get around the chant like any other set up ( sit in cabal ), or like some of the crafty ppl, request key off commander dude in blackwatch and lock that door with the super goodie light staff and chant away. As for the time you have to put in the weapon, I mean its hard no matter what- and you can choose artificer if you really wanna speed it up, you also get the first 3 lvls I believe for free, by chanting- and and store that weapon in a locker. People usually do this strat asap around 30ish. I know the psalm has a big CD, but you get it without putting yourself in danger.

By no means do I think sader is in a "good" spot right now, but every time we vamp a class it gets the "overwhelming power" treatment for 3-6 months. In this time to prove the overwhelming power ( in my experience only), and to get it tuned the process is getting steamrolled and send logs of getting dominated, accepting advice, get rolled again, get frustrated , try something else, get steamrolled, delete, leave, come back in a few months and see 1 of 20 things that are a problem halfway nerfed.

Perhaps we need to look at things to level off the power level to things we consider subpar, start small nerfs across the board to get down to a lower baseline of powercreep, which I think the staff is really getting after now, and I really have to hand it to em.

19 minutes ago, Atticus said:

idk man, you can get around the chant like any other set up ( sit in cabal ), or like some of the crafty ppl, request key off commander dude in blackwatch and lock that door with the super goodie light staff and chant away. As for the time you have to put in the weapon, I mean its hard no matter what- and you can choose artificer if you really wanna speed it up, you also get the first 3 lvls I believe for free, by chanting- and and store that weapon in a locker. People usually do this strat asap around 30ish. I know the psalm has a big CD, but you get it without putting yourself in danger.

By no means do I think sader is in a "good" spot right now, but every time we vamp a class it gets the "overwhelming power" treatment for 3-6 months. In this time to prove the overwhelming power ( in my experience only), and to get it tuned the process is getting steamrolled and send logs of getting dominated, accepting advice, get rolled again, get frustrated , try something else, get steamrolled, delete, leave, come back in a few months and see 1 of 20 things that are a problem halfway nerfed.

Perhaps we need to look at things to level off the power level to things we consider subpar, start small nerfs across the board to get down to a lower baseline of powercreep, which I think the staff is really getting after now, and I really have to hand it to em.

The first part of what you said was my point.  Sure people could get around it, but currently they already do.  The difference in what I was saying was less time NOT pking and more time pking and interacting without giving a huge power spike.  They can already now use an avg. 40 vuln weapon.  What I was giving is making them choose between a superb psalm like undeniable order or a vuln weapon.  Do you want a large short term affect that is a serious buff or a long lasting smaller affect?

It is one thing to point out problems and believe me I understand the part about giving logs and writing things in prayer and then waiting while getting pretty much stomped.  I remember Ashuga stomping a lich I had with the arctron.  Paralyze, bash bash bash bash.  Good lord, it was annoying.  I don't mind losing.   I don't even mind fighting an uphill battle.  But, I absolutely hate the denial game.  If I have to win by making it so you can't do anything then that is a game I don't want to play, because I'm no longer playing against you, I am playing the game mechanics.

I am only saying that any 'minor' buffs we give should go to the crusaders who need the most help.  Crusaders are the most versatile in terms of selectabilitiy skills.  They are also the easiest to screw up with in terms of your selections and there isn't a way to change it without an IMM.  Some of the helpfiles are outdated as well which I have seen screw up a few of the more recent crusaders thinking they get less sections than they actually do because of the helpfile which leads to bad choices.  I'd rather see those minor things fixed first and then more on to the more moderate problems.

I believe already unless you take psalm master, I only remember one within the last 10 years of taking it with any success.... you cant vuln weapon + undeniable order already. I might be misunderstanding this point, forgive me if thats the case.

as for the help files, yea- alot is outdated. It's really on us to point it out, I myself have been lazy until recently to bring it to light.

my main point, which I dont think I go out of my way to point out is that I think we should look away from buffs, because then it becomes a game of increasing power across an array of different classes, cabals ect. Instead, we discuss balance in that of toning, publicly would be best imo. We just go across the line of "what works too well" basically, then bring it back a little bit.

Perhaps crusader does need a buff to sustain it as playable, but then again- I believe that instead we could be considering discussion of why doesn't halfling warrior get played, human, ect. perhaps we look to weapon finesse. I'll stop this is basically a derail rant.

mb

I never have problems with Psalms. I always take the psalm master so that I can change my psalm list at will. I also always chant virtues psalm to reduce my chant cooldown.

I have no trouble with the Psalm of "Undeniable Order". I never use it, because I chose Armor craft. In my opinion a psalm that removes rare limit on crusaders shouldn't even exist.

Crusaders are a unique class in that you build you combo by choosing skills. For this you forgo getting some skills to get other skills,. You want more power, you make sacrifices and don't take the less powerful but more quality of life options. What would not make any sense would be crusaders to get the best of the options and not suffer in other areas because of it.

You have the option as an Armorcrafter to make a piece with huge AC but you can't owner it. Or you owner it and the AC is just  decent.

You can choose to make an Armorcrafter and have defensive armor with saves, or you make Weaponmaster and create ofensive weapons that can't be disarmed.

You can choose to be Pious and have 2 psalms allowing Vuln and no disarm or you chose to be a Beheader with 1 psalm active and a great skill.

You can choose to have pomel smash and be able to blind or you chose another and you can't blind.

You can choose to be a weapon master and have a holy weapon that is noremove, or you can chose to use your only psalm to do prevent disarm, or you can just use a rare non holy weapon norem weapon.

Crusaders have options and for each option you take, you can't take others. That's what makes the class to nice. Some prefer weaponcrafter, other armormaster, it's very diverse. Let's just not make it a lets have it all without no penalties class.

The trouble with the 'choices' is that they are limited by race.  For instance, I don't know how much specifics I can go into, but certain weaponcrafter benefits you cannot take on an elf in combination simply because you will not be able to wield the weapon afterwards because it will be too heavy.  Other races can overlook that.

As far as psalms go, some of the most powerful you cannot use in combination with other ones.  Inner strength is one of those at least last I checked.  The second part is all of your choices don't equally stack up, which is why it has always been said your first crusader will suck because you have to learn how much impact the different choices make and the helpfiles are vague about some of it or confusing about others.

I don't want to see the class turn into just another warrior or berserker class without different armor.  I do want to see each selection make an impact on how you play.  No two crusaders should be using the same skills as far as I'm concerned in every situation.  Currently, rushing works for storm giants against anyone who doesn't have protective shield.  If someone is prepared for it, you can still rush them, just with less effectiveness.

I'd like to see their active skills reflect their choices more and the psalms partly do that (Psalm of righteousness comes to mind).  But, the main issue is the amount of time you spend sitting and waiting.  Making that armor takes literal days in game for one pieces.  Not days running around.  Days sitting and doing nothing else.  You may as well get up and go make lunch.

You guys trying to make the crusader class a blademaster class.

Crusaders have lots of long lasting options that can be done outside of battle, but few in battle. Blademasters are almost the oposite in that you can react a lot faster.

Choices aren't limited by race, you make options. You chose an elf and get autosneak and now you can't pick a capenter hammer and fill it with weight increasing modifications. You got to use a lighter weapon.

This isn't wrong. Whats wrong is thinking you should get everything others get, even though you got other stuff in exchange for it.

I agree on armorcrafting taking to long. 24 h looking at the screen inside the crusader hall is anti-fun, specially on a mechanism that is already time limited due to the gathering of starstones.

11 minutes ago, mya said:

You guys trying to make the crusader class a blademaster class.

Crusaders have lots of long lasting options that can be done outside of battle, but few in battle. Blademasters are almost the oposite in that you can react a lot faster.

Choices aren't limited by race, you make options. You chose an elf and get autosneak and now you can't pick a capenter hammer and fill it with weight increasing modifications. You got to use a lighter weapon.

This isn't wrong. Whats wrong is thinking you should get everything others get, even though you got other stuff in exchange for it.

I agree on armorcrafting taking to long. 24 h looking at the screen inside the crusader hall is anti-fun, specially on a mechanism that is already time limited due to the gathering of starstones.

Not really man, we are speaking to how giant races dominate crusader for obvious code mechanics that favor Large race vs Small race- which holds true against just about anything melee/martial.

Even when you get done with all of your selections you are left with at most "selectable legsweep, murder, rush, impale, batter, selectable deflect."

Idk what the problem is trying to expand that via selectables, following "give and take" system that makes sader pretty cool imo.

 chant icefire
You rest.
You start to meditate and chant the psalm of Icefire

 aff
You are affected by the following:
Spell: chant psalm : for 0 hours
Spell: chant : modifies wis by 1 for 6 hours
Spell: virtues : permanently
Spell: mounted : for 52 hours
Spell: drug use : for 18 hours
Spell: inner strength : modifies str by 25 for 224 hours
Spell: detect invis : for 5 hours

[The Voice of God] - World shift in 3 hours.
The psalm of Icefire fills your mind and soul with strength and focus.
You stand up.

This is the power of a Pious + Psalm Master.

Instant vuln weapon if cast near tick.

19 minutes ago, Atticus said:

Idk what the problem is trying to expand that via selectables, following "give and take" system that makes sader pretty cool imo.

I have nothing against expanding the selections list. But you are the first to propose that in this thread. I think it would be quite interesting.

What I'm against if empowering certain mechanics because people don't want to make the commitment of choosing the selections that empower them.

I wasn't talking about adding new input commands or anything of that sort.  I was talking about selections augmenting the commands they already have.  For instance, one selection can make a rush add the bleed affect due to selections.  Another selection could make rushing someone give you more armor.  Both would still only have the same rush command, but the selections would make them play differently.

As far as expanding the selection list goes, some of the selection could be changed flat out, like witch compass, and made into something of worth that might have people pick it over other options.  I don't want crusaders to play like blademasters at all.  I want each crusader selection to have a greater impact on what they do.