Minister

My suggestion is pretty basic, and after fighting them more often than any other class, and after having played them more than any other class, I've came to this conclusion;

Simply make minister do one OR the other. Either let it drain mana, which it does at an EXCEPTIONAL rate, or allow it to lag, which it does at an extreme rate.

Since the mana really only affects mage/communer types in a big way, I would suggest allowing the minister to keep the lag, which would probably make the evil clerics alot happier. It would also still allow others to fight because their mana is not completely drained.

Minister has been debated for a long time. There are many possible solutions to it, and one really just needs to be decided on. I think EVERYONE can agree that, as things stand now, minister is not a "fair" ability. Yes, there are people out there who can rape evil clerics. Good for them. The rest of us are still getting eaten by them. A DROW cleric, with nothing but a shield, if that, can, with relative ease, take down an extremely decked, dual spear-wielding ogre warrior. I use ogre warrior for my relevant example, because that is a combination of a race/class that can often find themselves helpless to the wrath of an evil cleric.

Before we move onto the solutions, let's take a look at minister itself. Examining the fact that no matter how many mental saves you have, a cleric's minister, if mastered, still seems to consistently land on the first or second attempt. This then proceeds to drain anywhere from 20-80 mana, going from one extreme of the scale to the next. It also gives out anywhere from 2-4 rounds of lag. This lag is completely and totally impossible to escape. Once sermon lands, you are lagged, and there is not a damn thing you can do about it. So for four rounds, you are stuck taking massacres-oblits as the aforementioned ogre warrior. This time can also be used to dispel your sanctuary, which, in conjunction with fire shield or steel wall, can deal an additional massacre every round, and up the damage you are taking from path. So we'll give said ogre warrior four ticks to live, assuming they top off around 1400 hp and are decent at playing the attrition game, AND land a dirt kick or other type of blind every tick. And how does the ogre warrior beat this? He gets detect magic potions, and waits for the cleric's protective shield and sanctuary to fall. Right? Wrong. Sermon lags on the tick. That's four round for a cleric to flee/run, put up both spells, and RETURN to get another path in, if they're quick. Now, let's say the cleric is a fire giant. They're running on about 1/3 of their normal mana at this point. So what do they do? Cancel holy hands and switch it out for a high-damage vuln-hitting flail, toss on a shield, and start beating the crap out of the warrior melee style. Something people seem to forget is that clerics also have a very nice melee capability. Anyway. You've now got one dead ogre warrior, no sweat for the cleric.

What can we do about this? Let's see:

Evil clerics are very much a part of the evil-world. They are well known for being able to bring back team evil from its void, when Knight is ruling the world. We don't want them to lose interest. So what are we going to do? Make mental saves pwn minister? No. That would end up the same road as Shamans. When have you ever seen a shaman take down someone who had the right kind of saves. Never. It's a losing battle. Ever since the mal saves change, there has been ONE -SEMI- (I emphasize SEMI) successful shaman, and that had a lot to do with his cabal, and items/abilities related to it. And so we come to...

Solution #1- Make mental saves have a higher effect on minister, but do not make them obliterate it completely. Let's say, with -40 mental saves, minister will take four or five tries to land instead, and will only lag for one round. This is enough, if a cleric's currently being bashlocked, or has spammed path, a melee class has a chance to continue laglocking them. Or, if a haymaker lands, the cleric doesn't get 6 rounds to flee and put up spells.

Solution #2- Remove minister entirely. While this solution may seem extreme, minister is NOT a necessary part of evil cleric PK. Yes, most, if not all evil clerics have become dependant on it to get their kills. Why? Because it's easy. It requires little to no effort on the cleric's part, and makes it so a cleric can re-equip more easily than a thief. This isn't the intent of the class. A cleric with path, a physical/magical high damage unblockable attack every round, and melee capability can PK still, it simply won't be a matter of landing minister, and the battle being over.

Solution #3- Vary minister's effects. Give a roll every tick for the afflicted person to clear their head of the cleric's preaching. Make the amount of lag vary, say from 1-3 rounds. Make it an escape-only tool, so that while it is affecting the victim, no other spells can be cast on the victim.

As a sort of conclusion, I'd like to restate that it is obvious that something DOES need to be done about minister. Warrior bashlock is not all-inclusive, and is very easy to counter. Battlemage scythe-triplock can only affect people who aren't flying. A melee and a mage, neither of which can completely laglock anyone. And yet a cleric can do both, more effectively than either? This is a definent sign that something is out of proportion.

Well I would just like to say that not everyone can agree that minister isn't a fair spell, since I don't. Unless there is a bug that has made it easier to land, it's been exactly the same spell since 1.0. Why would it suddenly be a problem? If there is a problem, it's steel wall.

If you're talking about an ogre, then I don't think you can complain if it lands after one or two tries. It should land after one or two tries. Try playing a halfling if you don't want minister to land so easily. But then you don't get the same melee ability of course.

Once again I think we come back to a reoccuring theme. The spell in and of itself is not really that powerful. You get lagged for a few rounds, EACH TICK, you have all the time inbetween to fight back or run. Someone stated a while ago that the problem lied more in very skilled players using evil clerics. I wont dispute that a great tracking player with an evil cleric hwo landed minister will toast you if you have to run, but a noob, or even average player will not. But a great player will likely whoop a not great player with any char.

Maybe minister should get looked at, and maybe even tweaked slightly, but I just dont think it is as powerful and all-mighty as some people make it out to be.

Again, this was also said by someone else, a drow cleric for instance doesnt need much eq, their dex alone gives them a good armor class and their int gives them a high natural mana pool, a cleric doesnt NEED melee damage to win (specially as a drow) so dont be surprised they can do well with just a shield. What you need to do is get saves against mals and afflictive, or go huge on hit/dam if you are a pure melee class and unload on them with a weapon they dont know. Since minister will land anyway, why bother with the mental saves? A drow cleric, with just a shield prolly wont have much more than 600hp (<--- guess as I never rolled one) so it doesnt take much to kill them if you can.

If all else fails, log out and log back in with your thief. I find clerics are particularly easy to blackjack and pry. Just annoy the heck out of them. Or if you dont have a thief yourself then bounty them, someone will get them eventually.

Lastly, you mentioned an ogre warrior. Seems like they might be particularly vulnerable to a drow cleric. The game is not balanced in the sense that any race/class can always beat any other race/class, if that was so we'd only need one race/class to choose from. If you are that sick of evil clerics then roll up something that will rock their worlds. I bet a halfling blademaster with the right anatomy picks might do the trick, or even a dwarven one.

I think skills and spells should be addressed in a contructive way to maintain a careful balance. Now it may not be the case, but it sounds like you just got killed by an evil cleric.

PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU RESPOND TO THIS POST

Heres the deal. I did not just post this because I died. I gave some real thought into it, and although I didn't post how I came to the conclusions I gave them. I am posting this because it's a single skill that has way too many uses. Both on offense and defense. Even a good player who is pushing this cleric back won't finish them, or at least shouldn't finish the cleric if they are ministered. It is the only lag skill that will lag you when sanctuary drops no matter what, and to date the only arguement I have heard to combat this is; you should be watching your sanctuary and not be around when it drops. Now this is all and well but is contradicted by the other statement I am hearing; A well played evil cleric will out run you while you are ministered. Hell lets face it, a semi-decent player will outrun an expert player if the expert player is ministered. Secondly, in reference to this point, a melee class for the most part will be using 2-3 hour sanctuary, so their sanctuary is ALWAYS dropping. Using the logic presented this means the melee classes are not allowed to fight the evil cleric? Lets go on with this method of thinking.

Assuming evil clerics are the elite melee killers out there we will say for theory purposes that hands down melee is raped by them. So let's branch to mages and hybrids. We will start with hybrids who have no protective shield, are all normal sized, and lets face it, are used to being bashed and/or bodyslamed by any melee. They are the masters of knowing how to combat lag without actually having an anti-lag skill. To counter the fact that they do not have the size to fight the lag these hybrids are granted spells that help counter act this. Yet minister not only lags, it drains mana. This means that all hybrid classes are forced to play based on melee. So lets think about this, a gimped melee class is forced to play only melee? Didn't we say melee were auto raped by clerics? Well I suppose we are done here.

Note: This excludes dark knights, which in my honost oppinion are the GREATEST melee based dps class in the game, when at their height.

Now lets not get down, because we DID say evil clerics rape melee based classes, this must mean they are raped by mage types. So we have necromancer, invoker, and battlemages. First off, luckily for the necromancer he has an army behind him to help push out damage and not have to rely on the damage from his spells. Necromancer cannot dispel due to spell turning(spell turning lag was stripped to nothing so pushing this back up is not at risk anymore, especially important on failing casts.), so the necromancer really can only faerie fire to try to knock town the shield. Now of course because both parties are elite and dont' spam the cleric will merely flee and recast, assuming the cleric even needs to, because by now the necromancer is cursed/ministered and the pathing has begun. I don't see any way a cleric will every have to worry about a necromancer, there is no way the necromancer can out last, the necromancer can't recall, can't chase due to minister, and doesn't have a self casting sanctuary so the cleric just has to be patient.

On to the battlemage. I won't go too far into depth here besides saying that the battlemage NEEDS mana regen to compete. Well that ends that.

Now Invoker. Well now, it looks like we have a class that can compete. Area based spells make spell turning useless, mystic tendrils helps with the mana problem, AND they have self casting sanctuary. Mana shield makes path immune and we have now just forced the cleric to attempt to out melee an invoker who is raining hell down upon the cleric. Unfortunatly, due to minister and no way to curse this cleric, finishing them is near impossible.

So let us sum up the classes here that we can determine are the 'evil cleric killers'. Dark knights have the power with to easily mess them up with dual lvl 10 malforms. Even with a single full power malform, depending on the path allows the dark knight to take advantage of this cleric. Yet once again, minister will prevent getting the kill. Not to mention they are both evil align and the cleric can see this and make friends instead of enemies. I cannot discuss vampire but merely point out the same point I made with dark knights. With invokers we already discussed how they have the power to push them back, but no way to finish.

Now I'm not saying evil clerics are unkillable. This has alot to do with skill level of the players. Yet, if you assume the same skill level on every encounter I just do not understand how a single class can disable/prevent anyone from killing them, yet at the SAME time having the power to mutilate 90% of the combos out there.

Recent changes:

Steel wall-now makes them even worse against melee

Giant strength-not too much more then giving equipment options

Spell turning-cutting the lag on this makes it virtually riskless in recasting it.

All my clerics were played before the changes, and although minister has always been the same these 'upgrades' are just icing on the cake.

On my final note I shall take path of deciet and laugh at it. When is the last time you lost to an evil cleric from a mal? It makes no sense to have them cast mals if they are outright ripping you apart without them. They seem built to be an attrition class yet they never seem to have to rely on it? That doesnt' seem to make sense to me.

Hope you all take the time to read this and perhaps consider it before just shutting me down.

Thanks,

Magic resistant races(halfling, dwarf, duegar) "should" do alright against them. I personally haven't played any of the above three in forever so I can't say if that's true or not. That being said, I still think something, someway, somehow needs to be done about clerics. I don't know what needs looked at, what can be changed, or what....I'll leave that to the boss men with the big brains and the stats.

But.....I'm sure there is something out there that is a cleric killer, we just have to figure it out.

Well I would just like to say that not everyone can agree that minister isn't a fair spell, since I don't. Unless there is a bug that has made it easier to land, it's been exactly the same spell since 1.0. Why would it suddenly be a problem? If there is a problem, it's steel wall.

in 1.0 minister did not Lag, only drain mana.

evil clerics are the elite melee killers

Inaccurate, evils clerics are elite melee killers only if the melee is under equiped. A warrior with correct weapons and 60/60+ hit/dam will rape a cleric.

First of all, having played several melees recently, I can tell you how many of them you'll find with 60/60 hit/dam. I worked VERY hard to get 60 hit, and still could not bring my dam up enough too. Dual wielding spears, and decked out (including three pieces of Adeptus), I STILL died to a naked evil cleric, just because of the good ol' sermon;path;path;flee;heal;repeat until sanc drops

And second of all... that was it.

Re Mister E: Several things.

To begin, I did not recently die to an evil cleric. I have, in the past, died to numerous evil clerics. I have fought them, and I have played them, so I think I can make an educated opinion. Now then...

First and foremost... you said sermon lags on the tick. The average tick about 10 rounds long. Let's say, before the tick, I entered a lagging command. That's two rounds. Then let's say the cleric flees for four rounds, heals up, and returns. Let's say I then have two rounds of combat before doing anything else, from murder/charge lag. We're up to six out of ten now. I then toss in a dirt kick, haymaker, trip, any old command. We're up to eight out of ten. Let's say I've brought the cleric from scratches to big nasty in the time we've actually been fighting (four rounds). He flees and cure crits twice. He's now back up to half health. And guess what? That's ten rounds. I'm now at small wounds and bruises, and lagged for another four rounds. So what does he do? Cures back up to scratches, rinses, and repeats. Unless I land a very lucky attack on the tick sermon fades, or a very lucky haymaker + bodyslam, I'm toast in 4-5 cycles, with no chance but to attempt to run. How far can you make it in half a tick? I can make it from Val Miran to Kesrick in a tick and a half. Cut that into a third... wow, you've made it halfway up the cliffs in the dragons teeth. Another cycle? Ooh, you're getting close to the eastern gate. Another? Look, on the horizon, it's Kesrick! Ah, and look. You have been KILLED!

Saying that sermon is not a "problem", just because it's been about the same for the past 5 years is not a very profound remark. Many suggestions have been proposed, so instead of just not reading them, and taking a look at the title, and thinking "Sermon bashers, better stop em from taking my sermon away!", perhaps offer some more constructive criticism? And by constructive, I don't mean the same old mantra, "Wield weapons they don't know, and watch their health go away." That's old news, and doesn't work very well, to boot. So unless you know the secret to sermon and are holding out on us...

When I said it sounds like you just got killed, that was actually in reference to Balinors initial response to you Iyorvin, sorry for not clarifying.

Also, I actually agree with whoever said that clerics in the hands of a pro are far beyond survivable. I think they should be tweaked in some way to preserve balance.

I just do not think Minister is the sole reason, there are many more factors to consider, but I am not nearly qualified enough to comment on them because I have never even rolled a cleric period (except to go shaman at 25).

The only info I can provide is from my battles with evil clerics. And since I have never been so badly beat by one I guess I have trouble in agreeing with the "way overpowered" accusations.

I have also killed an evil cleric, and come close a couple other times too. I would like ot hear from some of the imms on this topic, as thus far they seem to mainly be observing the pbase thoughts.

Well, my judgements are based off of having four pinnacled, three cabaled, and on the other side, I have been fighting them straight for a week now, not to mention the 6 years experience, 4-5 years with minister lag, to back my point.

I think spellturning is way more powerful than minister. But of course, unlike minister, it wont help a cleric for crap against a pure melee.

Spell turning can get knocked though, and minister can't.

Necromancers. Cleric banes.

I doubt such. I am willing to make a cleric, untrianed, go to 50 and prove it.

invokers have very little problem with evil clerics..mana charge makes it easy to chase, and the cleric can't do anything unless they are simply running.

I stated that. And like I also stated that is one non quest class that have an easy time with them.

what about BLMs, thieves, ninjas, rangers, monks, and even zerkers.

I think those all have a fair chance against an evil cleric.

in 1.0 minister did not Lag' date=' only drain mana. [/quote']

Wrong. It was exactly the same.

Balinor, in terms of it being the same since 1.0, point is that there really hasn't been a cleric problem in all that time, except perhaps recently. If minister is such an overpowered spell, then why haven't there been more dominant evil clerics? The change has been to steel wall, so if there's a problem it's there--that and the fact that svs equipment was largely eliminated, although that was at the beginning of 2.0, and the problem if there is one has only arisen recently.

Kramerica I think you're making it sound a little too easy to kill all those classes with a cleric. I don't doubt a skilled player can do it, but I've played a cleric, and I found it pretty tough to face a lot of the classes you mentioned--although I could get away, to be fair, but then it's supposed to be a defensive class. Killing a necro, decked warrior, or vampire with a cleric is certainly doable, but it takes some skill. I think for most people who play them, they're a fairly easy class to survive with, as they are supposed to be.