Aehm, first of all, look at these statements:
Unfortunately, we also understand that not all of our players are happy with their class trees and builds. Some classes show their true beauty the way we intended them to and are consequently loved by many, but some classes weren’t as lucky and have often been ignored…
We at the dev team feel the need to reduce this ‘class disparity’.
We have implemented five class patches so far. These are the goals we have been aiming to achieve with them:
1 Each class should have its own characteristics and roles.
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Adjustments should be carefully planned to avoid one class dominating its rank or being left out, and to achieve a fairly equal distribution of classes in each rank.
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Rather than letting one class become too good to the point of self-reliance, we should devise a plan to encourage different types of classes to work together and develop new play strategies.
We’ll go through all 3 points for you to understand through e.g. the example of Kabbalist vs Plague Doctor.
1st point: Plague Doctor has it’s specific role, it spreads debuffs and prevents debuffs.
But what does Kabbalist do? Play with numbers? The debuff skills are so badly designed, they don’t even stack! It could’ve been a good Class, but from the current gameplay way, it’s practically impossible to provide meaningful support with Kabbalist, as people just bash monsters like no tomorrow rather than waiting a few seconds for Kabbalist to do his magic.
2nd point: Do you seriously believe there are ± as many Kabbalist C2/C3s as there are Plague Doctor C2/C3? Their goal is to balance Ranks within a Class tree, but they didn’t do anything to make Kabbalist equal to Plague Doctor, especially in the damage department.
2175% Merkabah vs. 4260% Black Death Steam per overheat e.g. is just one example for such unbalancing, as Plague Doctor is also a support-focused Rank 7 Class, there is no reason to make it that much stronger than Kabbalist.
This is basically the reason why Kabbalist is so unpopular, because it’s highly inferior to Plague Doctor (even with the new Kabbalist C3 attributes accounted).
3rd point: Plague Doctor is the antithesis to this statement. The Class can do everything, it has a Pain Barrier skill[Methadone], debuff removal, debuff immunity, strong damage skills, a rapid healing skill. That’s all you want from a Cleric Class, it doesn’t have to rely on any other Class to bring damage or support and thus is completely free to choose its path.
Its skills also aren’t hindered/removed by other Class skills/minions,so it works well together with every Class.
Now looking at Kabbalist, this Class is on permanent I.V. infusion of other Classes,
as it doesn’t provide any damage [Merkabah is the worst Cleric damage skill and heavily bugged], its damage multiplication debuffs are triggered&removed by every single attack/skill (including e.g. zombies autoattacks and bonus damage attributes on buff skills [e.g. Arcane Energy, Prophecy]) and Ein Sofs effect doesn’t fill up your max HP, so you need a healing skill or pots to benefit from the max HP boost.
If we talk about Class synergy, Kabbalist also loses out to Plague Doctor, simply due to the fact that
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Clerics don’t really benefit from higher max HP [Paladin C3 might when taking damage for team mates] and the SP recovery is a pretty generic effect, not a synergy
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the damage multiplication debuffs suffer from the fact that most Cleric skills only deal damage in multiple hits, which are pretty weak individually; the exceptions are Sadhus Astral Body Explosion [weak attack value,though], Oracles Twist of Fate [damage cap makes this synergy weaker than needed,though, and the combination in a single build(Oracle3>Kabba2/3) is impossible till at least Rank 10], Inquisitors God Smash [combination in a single build with full effect(Kabba3>Inqui1) is possible from Rank 10 on] and Taoists Divine Punishment Charm [combination in a single build impossible till at least Rank 10,best effect at Rank 12].
There are a lot of synergies between several Classes, e.g. Paladin & Inquisitor [Conviction + God Smash, Judgement+Smite] Miko & Dievdirbys [Clap + any statue]or Taoist & Krivis [Storm Calling + Zaibas], but none for Kabbalist.
I’m not saying that Kabbalist is a bad Class, but it surely doesn’t stand its ground as a Rank 7 Class (if its position in the Class tree was exchanged with Bokor e.g., it would’ve made more sense) that currently ends your build. Every other Rank 7/Rank 8 Class is better simply due to the fact that there is no content that requires the support Kabbalist brings.
Or did you ever see someone asking for a Kabbalist to run ET/challenge mode or farm items?
Unique support my foot, the support is so bad that people rather play any other Cleric Class than Kabbalist, the few Kabbalists usually only play PVP/GVG.
