After thinking and calculating some things over, I’ve got some ideas for the Kabbalist C3 and the ongoing rebalancing for the Cleric class.
1st of all I believe we have to take a short detour and see what Kabbalist is currently at, what I believe the developers tried to do with Kabbalist and what Kabbalist is currently aiming at.
Lets talk about Kabbalist in general 1st.
Kabbalist, as it stands, stems from the Hebrew word [קַבָּלָה] ,
which translates to something like “tradition”. As far as one might find out from the net without counterchecking scientific analyses/archaeological material, it seems that the so-called “Kabbalist” was a specific kind of Jewish mystician from the middle ages.
The in-depth context is very complicated and split-up in several different types of theoretical and scholastical focuses, similar to how alchemy was split up/had different research focuses depending on the goal/study pretense.
I believe that TOS’s Kabbalist is based on the “Practical Kabbalah” as it seems to be the only form of Kabbalism which tries to manipulate divine forces to ones will and also features the divine realm (e.g. “Ein Sof”, the godly creation) and the Merkabah “methods” [Merkabah itself seems to be sth like a “taxi” for people who want to know the truth; it takes them to the door to the godly sphere afaik, maybe that’s why you can ride it; too bad in TOS all it does is exploding beneath your feet…].
According to wikipedia (not really a trustworthy source, but I’ll use it anyway) that’s also where it splits away from the real Kabbalism and becomes more like the Near Eastern magic/mysticism schools which were the foundation for European alchemy and later European magic theory [e.g. Aleister Crowley] as a seperate and shunned tradition [yeah so much to Kabbalist… the shunned scholar-like magician striving for power,knowledge and worldly manipulation; seems similar to the fate of Dr. Faustus, the prominent medieval alchemist/sorcerer; let’s just hope the devil doesn’t get his hands on our Kabbalist too xD].
It seems that even the story of the “golem” of Prague is somehow related to the Kabbalistic studies, would be a great addition to the skill set actually. Anyways, the numerical part of the Kabbalist [Gematria & Notarikon] stems from the “Gematria”, which depicts the calculation of written words mainly from the Hebrew alphabet. It’s funny to see that the system actually features the numbers from 1-900 for the different consonants, as vowels are typically not counted towards the numbers.
Too bad I have no idea of Hebrew, otherwise I could countercheck the Gematria vs. the values used ingame 
Then there are several methods to calculate the numbers… would be funny to see more of them ingame, maybe based on RNG which one is used by a certain skill to give different sums for the same skill used on the same monster. Wikipedia lists 17 different methods with variations in the calculation process.
Notarikon is another one of the 3 methods of number calculations in Kabbalism, which seems to have been used to derive essentials by using initial and final letter combinations for “calculating” new words/sentences.
Temurah is the final one we have yet to see in TOS and by far the most interesting one: It’s basically the total rearrangement of words by replacing letters after a certain scheme, creating new words/names in the process.
It would be awesome to rename enemies and make number calculation skills more or less effective in the process.
After the short introductory lore talk, let’s look at the current stae of the Kabbalist ingame. First of all, let’s do it the classical way by seperating the skills into 3 simple categories: attack, buff and debuff.
Let’s start with the attack skills (as this section is the shortest one currently):
Merkabah is currently the only attack skill of the Kabbalist class in its two Circles revealed. It has 5 levels, is a holy property ground targeted magic attack that moves along a targeted line from the caster to the targeted point on the map assigned as its end point.
Each skilllevel results in a heavenly chariot, aka Merkabah summoned and moves on the ground towards the selected destination where it explodes, dealing magic holy property damage to all enemies within a certain area around it. With a current patch apllied in KTOS, Merkabah will now also hit enemies it touches along the way.
The CD time is 45 seconds regardsless of skilllevel, while damage, number of chariots and SP consumption rises with level. From Circle two onwards, the skill gains several defensive attributes to aid the players when near the chariots, slowing down the movement and allowing the chariots to take a certain amount of hits before they vanish prematurely.
Next we come to the buff category, which features 2 skills:
Revenged Sevenfold is a defensive buff with a maximum of 15 skilllevels that allows the user to reduce incoming damage one time within 60 seconds buffduration to 1 and reflect seven times the damage + x ( bonus damage in % based on the skilllevel) back to the source that attacked the Kabbalist or anyone else who got the buff [as the buff applies for the Kabbalist and nearby summons, pets, players in the same party,etc (for a maximum of 7? targets I think)]. The skill duration as mentioned above is 60 seconds or one charge, whichever runs out 1st, while the CD time is 40 seconds. Reflected additional damage and SP cost scales with skilllevel.
Ein Sof is the second buff of the Kabbalist, a ground based magic circle which increases the maximum HP of the first character that steps into it. The magic circle itself has a duration of 15 seconds regardless of skilllevel (can be increased by and attribute), but the buff duration is based on the skilllevel (20+3*skilllevel seconds). The CD time of the skill is 60 seconds.
As mentioned before, the buff duration as well as the maximum HP% increase[20% per skilllevel] and the SP cost scales with the skilllevel.
Last but not least, the debuff category, which features most of Kabbalists skills :
Gematria is one of the two number calculation skills currently featured by the Kabbalist class. It calculates a number from all the letters of the monsters “true name” and displays it over its head afterwards. Is required to use the other advanced debuff skills. Has a maximum skilllevel of 15, and the skilllevel affects the maximum number of targets[skillevel*1 targets] affected by the skill as well as the SP cost. Has a CD time of 10 seconds regardless of skilllevel.
The other number calculation skill ingame, Notarikon. It calculates the number from only the first and the last letter of the monsters “true name”, and shares all other characteristics of Gematria [skilllevel*1 targets, CD time 10 seconds, 15 skilllevels, is required to use the other advanced debuff skills, etc.].
Reduce Level is a debuff skill that reduces the baselevel of the monster affected by Gematria or Notarikon by the number calculated and displayed above the head of the monsters + an additional value that’s as big as the skilllevel of Reduce Level. Has 35 seconds CD time, while the debuff lasts only for 10+skillevel seconds for every target affected by Reduce Level debuff.
The reduced level is displayed as "Reduce Level - x"
in orange capital letters above the affected monsters heads. Affects all targets within its Aoe with the Gematria/Notarikon debuff and overwrites it in the process. Has a maximum skilllevel of 5 and the SP costs scale with the skillevel as well as the additional level reduction and the debuff duration.
Similar to Reduce Level, Double Chance only affects monsters with the Gematria/Notarikon debuff. It works basically like a debuff version of Revenged Sevenfold, as it allows the user to deal several hits to certain enemies for one time, and the addiotional damage per hit scales with the skilllevel. However, it’s an aggressive debuff that allows the user to turn one of his physical attacks into a multi-stage attack which hits for 10%*skilllevel% damage per hit. The number of hits dealt to the enemy is equal to the number calculated onto the enemy with Gematria/Notarikon before the Double Chance debuff is applied.
The CD time of the skill is currently 35 seconds after it was reduced[from formerly 42 seconds] for balancing reasons in KTOS. It has 10 skilllevels and the damage% per hit as well as the SP cost scales with the skill level.
Affects all targets within its Aoe with the Gematria/Notarikon debuff and overwrites it in the process.
The last skill[currently] of the Kabbalist. Clone allows the Kabbalist to multiply a certain monster [not all monsters can be cloned] based on the number calculated by Notarikon/Gematria. The amount of monsters is equal to the number calculated (currently a maximum of 9 additional monsters), and the “lifespan” of those clones is equal to the number calculated by Gematria/Notarikon + the skilllevel of Clone. The maximum skilllevel of Clone is 10. Cloned monsters will not give EXP but drop items if killed before they vanish, and cannot be cloned again.
The CD time is 73 seconds and the SP cost as well as the additional clone duration scales with the skilllevel.
In contrast to Double Chance and Reduce Level, though, the skill only applies to one monster, regards of how many possibly targetable monsters have the Gematria/Notarikon debuff.
So, after this quick overview we have to see how well the Kabbalist fares in different situations. First of all, we have to note that “Double Chance” and “Clone” are Kabbalist Circle 2 skills, so we first look at how good/bad Kabbalist C1 is.
Kabbalist C1 provides 5 skilllevels on the following skills(if the skill level cap is reached, it is shown with a [max] behind the skills name):
Merkabah[max], Gemmatria, Notarikon, Reduce Level[max], Ein Sof, Revenge Sevenfold.
That’s a total of 6 skills.
However, not all skills are stand-alone skills, as Reduce Level requires at least 1 point invested into either Notarikon and/or Gematria to do anything as it requires the number calculation-debuff to work.
Let’s look at the other 5 skills first and analyze what you can do with them at Kabbalist Circle 1:
Merkabah. As we can assume from viewing the skill introduction video from tosbase.com
http://s01.tosbase.com/video/skills/41204.mp4
we can see that the skill sends out several chariots that move towards the located point and explode there to deal damage. As stated above, the number of chariots summoned is equal to the skilllevel, so level 5 will summon 5 chariots e.g.
As the skill damage per hit scales quite “good” with the skilllevel [(765+ 175,39x(skilllevel-1) x skillevel number of chariots], the damage itself isn’t a real problem at C1.
However, there’s one big problem of Merkabah, which is the high CD time of 45 seconds. As the only damaging skill this class features until Circle 2 and the only source for Kabbalist C1 to deal damage, the CD time and total absence of overheat charges make this skill very bad at Kabbalist C1.
The damage is basically way lower than 5 levels of Cure or Heal can offer for way less silver invested into the damage attribute[ even more if the Kabbalist has INT for the main stat as Heal and Cure additionally scale with INT for additional damage while Merkabah does not] with ~2 times the CD time.
Besides quick explosion damage, Merkabah can’t do anything at Kabbalist C1 and only features 2 attributes: Petrification (which petrifies cursed targets hit by Merkabah for 3 seconds) and the generic damage increase attribute.
The next skill is Ein Sof. At a maximum of 5 skilllevels at Circle 1, the skill can’t be effectively used to increase ones maximum HP as the increase only lasts 20+3*skilllevel seconds, which is 35 seconds at level 5, while the skills CD time is 60 seconds.
However, the skill still has its uses as Circle 1 comes with two useful attributes: SP recovery and Increased Healing Capacity (or however it will be called when its name is localized).
SP recovery allows the user to trade 50% of the HP increement for instant
SP recovery when stepping into the skills magic circle, allowing it to recovery basically everyones SP by ± 100% (skillevel 3 required to learn the attribute; my current Ein Sof recovers about 5-6k SP at skilllevel 3 with this attribute activated). With 20% maximum HP added per skillevel, this skill can recover up to 50% of the users current maximum HP as SP this way when stepping into the magic circle [limited to one person at a time as only one person can recieve the Ein Sof buff; not limited to party members].
The other attribute (currently only featured in KTOS) doubles the HP recovery rate
of the Clerics Healing skills [Heal, Mass Heal] while under the Ein Sof buff,
making even the unsustainable buff a useful skillpoint investment at Circle 1.
Revenged Sevenfold is the other buff.
At Kabbalist Circle 1, it already has access to all its attributes (longer buff duration, chance to curse monsters hit by the skill),
and as only the reflected additional damage scales with the skilllevel, the skill is basically doing well enough even at skillevel 1.
As the skill has a limit of only 1 reflection regardless of level during its 60 seconds duration,
it’s useful even at Circle 1, as it can prevent damage from 1 source once (it reduces the incoming damage to 1 and reflects seven times the damage back to the source).
However, this also features a fatal flaw since the damage reflected is based on the final damage you would’ve taken if you’d been hit by the attack, so all your defence will heavily reduce the reflected damage in the process, making it unwise to increase the skilllevel if you plan to increase your defence above a certain limit.
With a 40 seconds CD time, the use is limited.
The next part will feature Gematria and Notarikon together,
as both skills are basically identical with each other.
Both skills have a 10 second CD time and can hit a number of targets equal to their skilllevels,
however, since the AoEs of the skills are very small, it’s hard to hit 5 or more monsters if they are above a certain size.
At Kabbalist Circle 1, the use of the number calculation-debuff is severely limited though,
because only Reduce Level can make use of it, and low numbers calculated on some monsters have a very diminishing effect.
Last but not least there’s Reduce Level.
This skill is the only skill at Kabbalist C1 that makes use of the number calculation-debuff.
It takes the number calculated from the name and adds a number equal to its skillevel onto it.
This number will then be substracted from the current monsters level to virtually reduce
its level by that amount for 10+skillevel seconds.
This will benefit the Kabbalist as the monsters and users level difference
also increases the attack value difference. A monster that is at a higher level than the player will deal significantly more damage onto the player,
and a monster lower than the player will have a penalty induced onto its physical attack power.
This allows to player to partially negate the level difference penalty
on higher leveled monsters and induce an attack penalty/increase it on equally/lower leveled monsters
for a short period of time, since the skills CD time is very high (35 seconds) compared to its duration.
After the analysis of the Kabbalist C1, let’s analyze Kabbalist Circle 2 now.
We’re staring again with Merkabah. Although the skillevel cannot be increased any further than 5,
the 2nd Circle of Kabbalist strenghtens Merkabah manyfold by adding Circle 2-specific attributes to it.
There are 4 new attributes in total, Reduced Movement Speed, Enhanced Durability, Divine Protection and Increased Magic Defence.
Reduced Movement Speed allows the the chariots to move slowly over the battlefield, which allows the user to mount the chariot, or to move alongside it, in turn making it possible to recieve the additional benefits from the other new attributes.
It also allows the chariots to deal damage while travelling through the enemies (see KTOS update 15.12.2016),
as the slow speed allows more enemies to get hit several times by each chariots, allowing to pull mobs along through the chariots’ wheels for additional damage.
Enhanced Durability allows the chariots to take additional damage before breaking by reducing the damage it takes to 1 per hit
and increasing its HP per attribute level to a maximum of 25 (which means every chariot takes up to 25 hits until it breaks).
This makes it easier to draw the aggression of enemies onto it and allows a longer sustain on the battlefield if its
movementspeed is decreased.
Divine Protection increases the damage of allies near the chariots as well as nullifying incoming damage on them,
making it possible to protect oneself with it.
Increased Magic Defence increases the magic defence of characters near the wheels by up to 200 (depending on the attribute level).
All in all Circle 2 turned Merkabah into the Kabbalists signature skill by applying all these useful changes onto it.
The next skill is Ein Sof. At a maximum level of 10, not only did the HP increement rise significantly,
but now it’s also possible for builds including Dievdirbys’ Goddes Laima statue in their builds to maintain the HP increement effect permanently,
as the CD time is reduce to 48 seconds with Laima while the lasting time of the buff itself is 50 seconds at level 10.
Nothing more added at Circle 2.
Revenge Sevenfold can reach level 10 now, which only increases the additional damage by up to 50%.
Nothing more added at Circle 2.
Gemmatria&Notarikon are buffed by two class attributes available at Kabbalist Circle 2,
“Enhanced Defense Formation: Saved Time” and “Enhanced Defense Formation: Target Increased”.
Enhanced Defense Formation: Target Increased increases the maximum number of targets affected
by Gematria and Notarikon by a maximum of 3 (1 more target per attribute level).
Enhanced Defense Formation: Saved Time decreases the time needed for the calculation.
This is just a visual effect to see the calculation result faster
as you can already apply debuffs like Double Chance and Reduce Level while the calculation is still visually “in progress”.
Also, both skills can be increased to a maximum level of 10, which increases the maximum amount of targets hit by the skill.
Reduce Level gains nothing from going Circle 2.
Then there are two new skills featured at Circle 2:
Double Chance features the possibility of hitting the monsters multiple times for (currently) reduced damage per hit.
The debuff lasts 1 hit only per monster and the number of hits applied are depending on the number calculated and applied onto them (number calculation-debuff) by Gematria/Notarikon.
With the skill reaching a level of up to 5 at Circle 2, the maximum amount of damage is 50% of you normal attack value (it’s a physical attack so only patk values counts towards the number)
per hit, so depending on the calculated number and the skilllevel, the skill can effectively increase or decrease the damage you deal onto a monster(or do nothing if the calculated number is 0).
Clone will multiply one monster by the number calculated by Gematria/Notarikon,
with the clones having a life span of the number calculation-debuff number+ skillevel seconds,
which results in a minimum duration of 2 seconds for 1 additional target at skilllevel 1 and up to 14 seconds for 9 additional targets at skilllevel 5.
After the analysis of both Circles currently, let’s talk about the use of the skills for Circle 1 and 2 respectively, and about Class/skill synergy next.
This will be done in a short list form as the part above already stating most information.
Each skill will also get a “Solution:” section, as to how to make the skill more useful.
Let’s start:
Merkabah
Circle 1: The skill is in a really bad shape at Circle one, as it can be only used to stagger enemies it passes through
and damage those who are close to the point where it explodes. The CD time is way too high for a damaging skill, nearly no other Class in the whole Cleric tree features a damaging skill
skill with such a high CD time and no overheat charges on it except Paladins “Turn Undead” skill (2 overheat charges and a chance to instantly kill monsters justifies the long CD time here,though)
Circle 2: The skill is completely change with the power of money (through attributes) as the skill gains offensive and defensive value.
Still, the problem of the high CD time as the only damaging skill of the Kabbalist remains.
Possible synergy: Sadhus Out of Body leaves the body without protection, so the defensive attributes of Circle 2 can help to increase Sadhus survivability near Merkabah.
Also physical melee classes like Inquisitor or Chaplain profit from the protection and additional damage near the chariots.
Solution: To make the skill more useful, the skills CD time needs to be reduced to ~30 seconds. Currently it’s really hard to use the skill offensively due to its high CD time
for all builds that don’t include Dievdirbys (45 seconds), especially at Circle 1 where the skill can’t do any wonders without the additional attributes.
The maximum traveling duration of the skill is somewhere around 15 seconds with the reduced movement attribute activated,
so the CD time would still be twice as high as the effective protective duration,
making the skill somewhere near equal to Sterea Troph of Druid at its maximum potential (50% protection uptime inside the grass[15 seconds uptime 30 seconds CD time]).
This would provide great help towards every non-damage focused Cleric build including Kabbalist into its class combination and provide some value even if Kabbalist is taken at higher Ranks (8/9 onwards).
Ein Sof
Circle 1: The skill is really great to increase your heal value and recover HP/SP[with attribute], or to survive a certain time when your Safety Zone/other protective skills are down.
Circle 2: Builds with Diev included can maintain the Hp increase by the skill permanently now, besides this, skill usefulness is still the same as at Circle 1.
Possible synergy: Good synergy with healing skills Heal and Mass Heal and thus with Cleric and Priest Class; as it doubles the healing value for one player,
it may allow players who want to make a heavy SP-useage DPS build to possibly skip one Circle of Cleric (as Cleric C2 is currently the meta because of 10 heals and improved Safety Zone)
and exchange it for Priest or Krivis if at least Kabbalist C1 is included at Rank 7.
It has a good Synergy with all classes that require many SP to use skills [Bokors Effegy spamming e.g.]
and with Classes like Sadhu that have less/decreased protective abilities to increase their survivability by multiplying their maximum HP instead.
Solution: To make the skill more useful, the skills base CD time should be reduced to 50 seconds.
This would enable Circle 2 Kabbalists to maintain their HP increase even without Dievdirbys in their builds,
thus allowing players to freely choose between going Kabbalist C3 or not[as this is a really big enforcement to absolutely advance to Kabbalist C3 for certain Class combinations].
However, to control the SP recovery, the 10 seconds that are substracted from the base CD should be added to the “Ein Sof: SP Recovery”-attribute instead
to not increase the amount of SP recovered over time as compensation.
Revenge Sevenfold
Circle 1: The skill is basically situational as it reflects damage based on the enemies attack and your defence value 1 time.
Circle 2: The same problem as Circle 1, the skill didn’t get any better by advancing to Kabbalist C2.
Possible synergy: Revenged Sevenfold has a great synergy with Sadhu as Sadhu is the only class that can reduce his defence to 0,
thus enabling you to reflect the maximum damage during Out of Body
while also protecting you one time from the heavy damage you’d have taken otherwise (killing two birds with one stone).
It also provides great synergy with Bokors zombies as Revenge Sevenfold is also applied to summons/companions,
allowing a Bokor Kabbalist “alone” to use the skill to its full potential numberwise (as you get several Revenged Sevenfolds with one cast instead of only one buff on yourself).
Solution: It’s really hard to tweak this skill without making it OP because reducing the CD time is very dangerous.
However, the lasting time increement of the attribute could be increased to 4 seconds per attribute level
to make the skill last 2 times its CD time(perfect for dodge builds and/or builds with many different damage mitigation skills).
Gematria&Notarikon
Circle 1: The skills are good to induce the number calculation-debuff onto some monsters.
Circle 2: The skills value doesn’t increase but decrease as the class attribute increases
the number of targets for free (with Divine Might you can get the value of level 5 Gematria/Notarikon with only 1 point invested into the skill).
As the AoE of the skill doesn’t increase, the value of leveling the skills beyond level 1-5 is basically 0.
Possible synergy: None, because no other Class has any profits from the debuff provided by the skills;
Only Reduce Level and Double Chance provide synergy with these skills.
Solution: To make the skill better, the AoE of the skill has to increase. I’d suggest that level 7 and level 12 thresholds
double the effective AoE of the skills (so that it can’t be reached by having 5 points + Divine Might buff)
so that more monsters can be affected by the skill according with the target increase by skilllevel.
Reduce Level
Circle 1: The skill is very situational and not very good on monsters that calculate for low numbers unless you get it at level 5+.
Circle 2: The same as at Circle 1, no improvement at all.
Possible synergy: Goes well with Classes that have to take high physical damage during melee fights, like Inquisitor,
or Sadhu with his 0 defence during Out of Body, as an additional protective skill.
Solution: As builds with Diev can reduce its CD time to below 1:2 CD/lasting time ration,
it seems to be unwise to change the CD time. However, the lasting time could be increased via an attribute (basically 5 seconds more duration at attribute level 5 and 5-10 seconds higher CD time)
that increases both CD time and lasting time, which would make the skill less situational
e.g. in boss fights because the duration is too short to cast many skills in it (animation delay,cast time,etc.).
Double Chance
Circle 2: the skill is potentially really good for any physical build including Kabbalist as it can increase your damageoutput severely with a certain amount of dedication onto your Kabbalist.
The problem is the small AoE affecting only a few monsters.
Possible synergy: Classes with physical focus like Inquisitor.
Solution: The skill is already very good, but it could be improved by further reducing its CD time and/or increasing the AoE of the debuff to affect more enemies at once.
It also requires an AoE buff for Gematria and Notarikon to apply the number calculation-debuff to more monsters at once to make the skill more useful.
Clone
Circle 2: The skill multiplies the number of one monster.
The duration of the clones is very short, so it’s hard to kill the monsters for the Kabbalist without a damaging class in its build or
unless in a party.
Possible synergy: Oracle, as it’s the only Class that can turn this skill into a useful skill to farm items, or at least having Clairvoyance scrolled.
Solution: none, the skills is too situational to make it any good besides in farming builds.
Maybe if it could affect more targets than one from a certain level onwards or via attribute that are under the number calculation-debuff it would be better…
