WARNING - This thread isn’t made for new players or those that seek guidance on how to use said class, please look for proper threads regarding it such as class overviews and build guides. Design Breakdown is a design discussion thread only and has no purpose to help players on practical aspects of the game.
Starting an updated Design Breakdown Re:Build with one of, if not the most, prestigious class in the game for the second time, Clerics. As a base class you can’t avoid to take it and so they need to have roaster of skills useful for all sorts of builds. If you haven’t checked already the other basic class entries were also updated to the current game state.
This is a great way to portrait the class and tree, a support class that can develop into less specialized offensive classes but will retain these traits and have more options on that field. As any other base class the goal is to set a basic skill set to set ground for other classes, the sole fact it has heal, debuff cleanse and threat removal is enough to ensure a minimal support value for any kind of build despite having minimal efficiency. Cleric on its own is focused on the support aspect and has damage only to be able to fight on its own when it has to and also to contribute with the offense a little as the game can’t promote a heavy support like gameplay right from the beginning.
A Cleric is any member of an religious order and it’s used as a basic RPG class since the earlier days of the genre, it usually takes the christian clergy and their doctrines as the base of their abilities. The chosen cleric for ToS was the european monk as we can see from the default outfit, this is further supported by the fact that monasteries where religious, educational and medical centers. Our cleric is set as a student of its religion with basic health care knowledge, we can’t ask for a better setup for the starting class of its tree.
Cure (C) - Midground
Taking the other element of the medical field, monasteries would often take care of people with disease and provide cleanse to them, this also fits the cleric fantasy as they remove impurities of their allies. A huge issue with the new execution is how the skill isn’t communicated properly, we can see the character animation but there’s no particle to define the hitbox size, which enemies were hit nor when it the damage and cleanse will land.
As a tile skill Cure was already uninteresting of a skill as it barely served as a debuff cleanse and could be completely wasted on the offense without using this component. It seems to have AAR based damage but the skill itself doesn’t inform it, on that matter it would be better to have the skill with a target count as this mechanic isn’t introduced in the class itself but is important for advancements. Being changed into a circular hitbox change fixed the main issue with the support side but that also removed the only interesting leveling feature the skill had, the current offensive component isn’t attractive with a minimal damage increment on 3 hits and works better as a fake taunt than a damage source. As a positive aspect Cure reinforces the melee aspect of the class by having the hitbox to be a radius around the caster as it could easily be some sort of cone or be applied in front of the user, in fact this specific hitbox can put the caster in danger if used carelessly.
What gets Cure the most is how it doesn’t communicate properly it’s effects, the fact is visually underwhelming and uninteresting to level despite being a reasonable skill. It is hard to balance a debuff removing skill in a way it will feel fair and interesting to level and when compared to other options it has the shorter stick, there isn’t room to expand the support capability of this kind of skill and the only approach available without a major change is to focus on the offensive side. As a debuff removing skill it could be natural for it to apply additional hits to enemies based on the amount of debuffs they’re inflicted with, if Cure had a natural component that adds one extra hit per debuff it can have +33% damage per extra addition which can be explored by certain builds and party compositions without turning into a powerhouse in the early game.
Fade (A) - Complement
When you hear the word Fade the first thing it comes in mind is something disappearing, that doesn’t sound like something a Cleric could do, i’m not sure if that’s a thematic skill on others RPG but it feels off. The threat removal from the self does fit a tho Cleric as christianism prays for non violence, that may be considered as asking forgiveness and if so it’s a great thematic link.
Even with that it doesn’t feel right that it affects all sorts of enemies, which includes bosses, elite mobs, mobs that you engaged combat on or even over aggressive enemies, however that can be considered for sake of simplicity and efficiency.
Guardian Saint (E) - Complement
There are two possible interpretations for Guardian Saint, one is by being the guardian angel that protects someone from hard and the other is a saint that guides your spiritual path, either way it doesn’t link the skill mechanic as just boosts Healing.
Healing was introduced as stat as an answer to an issue of how easily clerics could heal regardless of their stat which was a decent way to have dedicated healers to shine and put those with no support intents in the gutter, Guardian Saint was reworked to boost this same substat and ended up as a boring buff with no drawback. Having a raw % healing skill in the base class is outright pointless as the effect is too good to not be picked and is desirable for every kind of build, only high natural healing builds can skip it yet their benefit is greatly increased due the skill formula not having a floor and % scale with the value of itself.
As another issue we have the uptime nature of the skill for being a self buff with no drawback. Any buff that is applied only to the user and has full availability ends up as an occasional SP drain for passive effects that is only taken away when the user dies, yet the average self buff has short cooldowns and can be reused fairly easily for some extra SP. This isn’t applied if the skill has some sort of downside in its effect or if it can be shared with others, Guardian Saint only merit is to buff Restoration and Indulgetia further as special interactions and nothing else.
For Guardian Saint to be a real skill it has to approach the subject in a different way, the best approach is to have PAtk/MAtk to be converted into healing or have them added to heals as a flat bonus as that gives low healing builds tools to work around their weakness. Other options include adding HP% healing to skills, have healing skills to use the caster HP for higher healing values or even consume it and limit the number of empowered heals based on skill level. A wilder, and odd, approach is to have heal to be critical, however this route makes SPR to be as dominant, be frustrating on the unreliability and feel completely out of place.
Heal (B) - Lead
The most iconic skill for RPG clerics, it always uses the concept of healing through god’(s) power and here it isn’t different, however ToS gets some bonus points as the counterpart had connections to the medical field on the class source.
As a former tile skill Heal could teach the basics of tile skills to new players, act as a dedicated healing tool and serve as an offensive skill all in a single package but the major value of it was the way it could be used preemptively on both ends. This feature allowed players to plan out how Heal was going to be used based on their game knowledge and even allow the healing to be distributed among more allies without having to be close to them all time, on paper this design was round and was flexible enough to serve any cleric in different stages of the game but it ended up as being too much of a reliable healing skill that could be used carelessly and still succeed.
With the new targeting system the skill became a reactive skill that suits more the real time combat aspects of the game instead of the planing tiles provided, along that the lower healing capability made the game more engaging as it values more the use of potions when cleric classes are around and makes other healing skills to be required in the casual side as their major value was limited to endgame content. One thing to be considered with this change is a possible reintroduction of the %HP healing component to the skill as it can’t be abused with 2 uses only, the healing provided from the skill itself isn’t as strong so having something like 5% HP heal extra can be handy to get the minimum value specially for heavy physical oriented builds.
Even with the new Heal being less reliable and healthier to the game it still fails on some fundamental aspects, this new healing method has two punctual flaws the first being how it isn’t as fluid and practical to use. Self healing requires two button presses and any movement input will use it on an ally even when this isn’t the real intent, combine that with the fact the target wheel can be rearranged based on which party members are present in the moment and it doesn’t work as well as expected regardless of how used you are with it.
It is disappointing to know that Heal targeting wasn’t optimized to work instantly when no party member is in the map nor when the user isn’t in a party. A more appropriate way to execute it is by having the player to hold the key to activate it and release to apply the effect, a quick tap would work for self heal as inputting directionals won’t apply it unintentionally (considering lag may screw it up).
For last the ability to heal allies regardless of their position in the map is great but it also comes with an issue, ghost healers. Some players can bypass the game login restrictions using multiple PCs or by running virtual machines which allows them to have two characters available at the same time, however with Heal global range it isn’t hard to find a safe stop and use a second character as an healing slave with no drawback. If we take this to the next level we can have dedicated healer bots clustered in a map corner while farmer bots do the hunt, so far they don’t need to do it but this feature enables them to take harder maps easier for better goods.
Smite (B) - Relief
Physical punishment was a common tool of christian institutions during medieval times so it feels fitting to have a physical strike skill in the basic class skill set, in addition the heretic and damned purge also relates to the same source. On the animation side the skill doesn’t look as good with high attack speed and two handed mace, it doesn’t feel right to have such a windup animation on a heavy weapon to be performed as quickly.
Taking Smite to cleric settled down the last issue physical classes had with it as no route could offer a proper skill distribution that wouldn’t feel out of place even by the slightest, however the change in the class system and new skill set was already enough to keep the value high. As a counterpoint Smite serves as a reliable offensive skill that the class always lacked and when overheat and bonus damage is factored along it can’t just be ignored. As a last point to discuss it could be handy to have stun or knockback attribute for Smite as it can at least give it a value as a control skill, reminding that the tree itself has few of them, and expand the support aspect the class has.
Cleric’s skill set is supposed to be a starting point for other classes to build on and to some degree that works fine however the skills that define this baseline don’t offer that much room to exploration. As a healing powerhouse Guardian Saint is the kind of skill that can’t be skipped regardless of what you build, if you don’t have healing it will provide some more value and if you do it will amplify and this kind of design only serves to capture points mindlessly. Following that Heal itself is the basic skill that defines the class and cannot be skipped for that reason, tho it has room for lower levels but it is the less likely to be ditched considering it will be used through the whole game. If this wasn’t made clear by now both skills multiply on top of each other.
The remaining points have to be allocated in Fade, Smite and Cure which all have their individual values but can’t compete with the previous skills, as Cure has the support effect from start it doesn’t require any further level leaving the major choice be between Fade and Smite being the first already enough with a single point. When a class get to this points we can see that the real freedom of choice is quite limited, the sole fact 10 points almost always compromised make this formality almost pointless.
Both on theme and identity, being the bland basic support, seems to be quite spot on and the gameplay is as fitting for what it has to achieve, there’s no build path that will be on the short side of the stick despite it having the ability to compensate for some classes weaknesses. If it weren’t for the point distribution matter it could be round class choice variance, but truth be told the major distribution matter is where to take 1 skill point from to unlock Cure or Fade it is hard to get it any higher.
Identity - B
Theme - C
Gameplay - B
Skill Distribution - D
Overall - C
If you haven’t checked yet Scout, Swordsman and Wizard were updated as well and Archer was released along, next week will have both Priest (without Chaplain) and Doppelsoeldner updated followed by a new entry in Onmyoji.
) you didn’t mention the worst parts of C3 Guardian Saint…