I've seen many people trying to make such builds work over the years, but they always remained very mediocre due to being purely /noctrl attack oriented, while having inferior supportive abilities and nothing much to boost their damage.
It's time to change that, so help me out!
Here's what I have so far:
General concepts
- Ability to deal reasonable damage while providing solid support.
- Good self-sufficiency.
- Emphasis on spending SP on supportive skills to maximize own damage output.
- Need to actively attack enemies to maximize supportive output.
- Efficient ways of recovering SP while actually smacking stuff.
- Some additional utility not available to standard FS builds, and not abusable by those due to skill requisite and point requirements.
- More effective against Demons and Undeads but still viable all around.
- This should come with a small skill tree revamp, at least for AB, mostly making sense of Praefatio and Duple Light as requisites.
- Equipment to better accomodate this build would be added, and some older pieces changed.
- Access to very limited AoE potential, still a single-target oriented build but not completely neutered in the AoE deparment.
Basically, the idea involves a semi-tanky build that deals alright damage, pretty good damage against targets weak to Holy, can provide decent support and moderate healing. Sort of a melee equivalent of Sorcerer.
Below come some ideas for particular skills, it's all pretty vague for now and obviously not all the changes are meant to go together, if at all.
Castigatio (new skill)
- Single-target melee skill that deals moderate to high damage, on a medium cooldown.
- Self-cast buff, just like Exceed Break or Crushing Strike. Fits the BP's playstyle more than a targeted skill.
- Additional damage to Demons and Undeads.
- Follows weapon's property.
- Able to crit and double-hit.
- Portion of the damage is splashed to targets that are close. The theme would be basically splashing the weapon with holy water and smashing the target.
- After a succesful hit, the next cast within a couple of seconds is instant. This would open many options, both offensive and defensive, since this build can't really pick Sacrament.
- Boost the next healing ability after a succesful hit?
- Refunds its SP cost if it kills a target?
- Costs a Holy Water and/or a Blue Gemstone.
Eucharistica
- Has a new active portion, a temporary buff that increases its passive effects or does something else related to demon slaying.
Oratio
- Recovers a small amount of SP per hit to melee attackers, maybe at a chance, maybe more for skills and less for normal hits. The values would be based on skill's level and FS builds can hardly max it.
- Recovers a moderate amount of SP to the AB which cast it upon killing a debuffed target.
- Success chance and damage increase could be tweaked.
- Some sort of splash damage around the affected target when the AB hits it with a melee attack.
Offertorium
- Increases melee damage by a moderate amount, like a mini EDP, draining SP with every normal hit and increasing the SP cost of melee skills.
- This build would have the ability to regain SP while smacking and killing stuff so it would be possible to maintain the buff for moderate periods of time while actively attacking.
- Also directly increases supportive ability since heals are boosted.
- I wouldn't want it turned into a permanent toggle while mashing SP recovery items though, so there must be limitations.
Mace Mastery
- Increases melee damage based on max/current/missing SP.
- The increase could be Mastery/Weapon ATK, magical damage (Enchant Blade style) or something else.
- If it's based on missing SP (a percentage?), it would promote active use of supportive skills to increase damage since sitting at full SP wouldn't provide much of a boost.
- Could also affect books.
Mana Recharge
- Turned into a self-cast active buff, maybe retaining the current passive bonuses.
- The active buff would reduce magical damage taken while recovering SP upon getting hit by a spell.
- There's risk of FS builds picking this, but with all the requirements, it would leave a very dysfunctional build so it's ok I guess.
Magnus Exorcismus
- Turned into a dual skill which deals both physical and magical damage, adding much needed scaling for battle builds.
- This would mean great synergy with the instant-cast effect from Castigatio.
B.S Sacramenti
- Probably the most underused skill in the game, especially with Piety and Robe of Affection around. Needs a complete rework, nothing much comes to mind though.
- One idea is to turn it into some sort of short duration damage reduction buff, or absorbing shield for the caster and perhaps other adjacent Acolytes, or perhaps all players.
- Can be cast by the Priest alone.
- Would need a reagent cost.
- Relocated in the skill tree so it can't be easily picked by FS/Caster builds.
- Could also remain available to FS/Caster builds if the effects are moderate. Being a self-cast with a small area of effect around the Priest, I can't see how it could be abused, and it would be nice to have on FS builds.
- Maybe it could be a small area debuff around the Priest that decreases damage done by enemies for a short duration.
Angelus
- Could be better in general.
- Additional Soft DEF to the caster, and a bit more to the rest.
- Could also boost Soft MDEF.
- Reducing its maximum level to 5 while scaling down the bonuses.
- Might be problematic when used by Suras with all the buffs, so perhaps the additional self Soft DEF would only apply to Priests.
Signum Crucis
- While the skill is pretty amazing, no functional build can max it.
- Reducing its maximum level to 5 and scaling down the values could work.
- Infinite duration should go though, if it's made more usable, it should be actively maintained.
Divine Protection & Demon Bane
- Pathethic bonuses all around, probably should be similar Ranger Main and Research Fire and Earth.
- Demon Bane could also boost MATK.
There are also some general ideas when it comes to this class:
Praefatio
- The skill needs an incentive to be leveled up, since its cooldown increases with every level.
- Having it at level 5 as a requisite for everything doesn't make any sense.
- Either a level selection toggle or normalizing the cooldown would help.
Impositio Manus
- Extremely underwhelming in renewal.
- Could either provide more damage (boring) or do something else, like increasing HIT and/or CRIT?
Sacrament
- It's pretty awful to see FS builds pigeonholed into picking it, which doesn't really leave any build choices.
- Maybe a general Fixed Cast Time revamp is in order, reducing all the long casts that are barely usable without Sacrament and some equipment.
- With those very long cast times made manageable by default, Sacrament would no longer be an absolute necessity.
- Sacrament could then work like Suffragium but for Fixed Cast Time, or perhaps both?
- The effect would last for a set amount of casts, or the status itself could have a short duration, or both.
- Loses cast time but gains cooldown.
- Would lose its insane skill requirements to unlock.
Suffragium
- If Sacrament is remade, this skill would be in a strange place.
- Could affect Fixed Cast Time as well.
- The reductions would be higher than those of Sacrament.
- Would still last for a single cast.
- Could instead reduce After-cast Delay for the next couple of casts.
I know all of this is pretty messy and vague, but that happens when the archetype doesn't have much holding it, so give me your ideas.